A timely call for business to step up

The Winston-Salem Journal Sunday correctly called for North Carolina businesses to pay the debt the state owes the federal government for unemployment benefits.

The topic is also the subject of today’s Monday numbers.  Here’s one of those numbers that puts the debt into perspective.

2.8 billion—amount in dollars that would have been in North Carolina’s unemployment insurance trust fund in 2004 if the state had required contributions from employers at the national average tax rate from 1990-2004

But instead North Carolina policymakers slashed unemployment taxes on businesses six times from 1992-2000.