Maryland has the program been of more value to the community,
nor has the community in all that time ever been more aware of
this service. I refer, of course, to the late and unlamented recession
of 1958, in which many businesses suffered serious setbacks and many
thousands of Marylanders found themselves out of work. In the cal-
endar year of 1958, the Maryland Department of Employment Se-
curity paid approximately $72. 5 million in unemployment insurance
benefits of all kinds to unemployed workers. More than $60 million
of this amount represented benefits payable under the Maryland Un-
employment Insurance Law, the remainder being payments under
special federal programs for unemployed veterans and federal work-
ers and under the special federal program under which benefits were
extended temporarily during the emergency period. This money I am
talking about went to more than 135, 000 individual workers, or, that
is to say, about one of every eight workers in Maryland's civilian
labor force. Some idea of the workload involved can be gained from
the fact that more than 2, 400, 000 check payments were made.
It may be said without exaggeration that the Employment Secur-
ity program is in the largest measure responsible for the strong re-
covery we have made from the recession of 1958. In addition to this
pump-priming function, unemployment insurance benefits played an
even more important role in making possible the purchase of food,
clothing, housing and other non-deferrable items during the period
of temporary unemployment. It is of great consequence to the health
of our social and economic system that such a vast sum of money,
put aside during a period of relative prosperity, should have been
available in time of dire needs. A serious depression was averted,
and a great part of the credit is traceable to the fact that the com-
munity had money in reserve in the form of unemployment insur-
ance funds. It is not possible to say definitely that we have, through
unemployment insurance and other measures, defeated the "boom-
bust" business cycle that has plagued our nation since the Indus-
trial Revolution. But we may say, at least, that by leveling off the
sharp curves of economic expansion and economic depression, we
have restored the confidence of the people of the world in the capac-
ity of the capitalistic system to survive. Such confidence, we must
confess, was waning before these programs were inaugurated a quar-
ter of a century ago.
I have spoken at length of the payment of unemployment benefits,
with no intention however, of ignoring another valuable function
of our Department of Employment Security. Now that we have re-
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