Experience-Rating Operations in 1944

* Prepared in Program Division, Bureau of Employment Security. This article does not take account of the additional revenue collectible on 1944 taxable wages under war-risk contribution provisions, since sufficient data are not available at this time. Ten States (Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin) now provide for increased or additional contributions by employers with abnormally increased wartime pay rolls. In addition to warrisk, contributions, Wisconsin also requires a contribution of 0.5 percent from all employers for a special "postwar reserve" fund. For previous years' data on the operation of experience rating, see the Bulletin, October 1941, pp. 25-28; June 1942, pp. 12-24; February 1943, pp. 9-21; September 1944, pp. 11-19. 48. CONTRIBUTIONS DUE THE unemployment t rus t fund on 1 9 4 4 wages were slightly below the amount paid on the preceding year's wages—the first such decrease in the program's history. While taxable pay rolls in employment covered by State unemployment compensation laws continued to rise, the States ' experiencera t ing provisions reduced the average tax ra te (combined employer-employee contribution) from 2 . 1 8 percent in 1 9 4 3 to about 1.9 percent in 1944.1 Of the total of $1 .2 billion payable for 1944 , employer contributions amounted to about $ 1 . 1 billion and employee contributions to $ 8 5 million. Employees were taxed in only four States — Alabama, California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—at an average rate of 0.9 percent. Alabama was the only State in which employee ra tes varied along with employer rates, falling to an average of 0 .3 percent from the State 's 1.0-percent s tandard employee ra te ; in California and New Jersey all employees were taxed at a 1 .0percent ra te despite reductions in employer ra tes ; and in Rhode Island, which has no experience-rating plan, all employees contributed at the r e quired 0.5-percent rate .