Unemployment Insurance Meets Globalization and the Modern Workforce

Abstract

This article considers the impact of globalization and changes in the workforce on the unemployment insurance system, as illustrated by events leading up to recent amendments to Washington State's Unemployment Insurance system. Changes in international trade rules impacted the economic situation in which the Boeing Company operates and gave Boeing both the incentive and the ability to threaten to assemble its next generation jet outside Washington state, if its demands for changes to Washington's unemployment insurance system were not met. The author argues first that globalization transforms "federalism" arguments, making it difficult to assign taxing and administration of social welfare programs to either nations, or sub-national units, like American states. Second, she argues that the entry of women into the modern work force makes it important to accommodate carework in the unemployment insurance system. Reconceptualizing care work as a form of "economic development" may assist us in developing needed arguments for accommodating carework. In light of the effects of globalization, social movements and advocates concerned with unemployment insurance will require an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the links among disparate areas of the law.

Keywords: globalization, unemployment insurance, unemployment compensation, carework, federalism, carework