America does not have a national system of unemployment insurance. The most that could be put in place during the New Deal of the 1930s was a patchwork of state-level systems. Benefits are low and expire in most states after twenty-six weeks. Southern states like Florida and North Carolina offer no more than twelve weeks of cover.58 This creaky and punitive system is designed more or less explicitly to deter applicants and to reject many who do apply. By March 2020, it was groaning under a weight it had never before experienced.
