Business owners feel pinch of unemployment taxes
When North Carolina politicians say it's up to businesses to hire again so the economy can recover, they mean people such as Cindy and Dave Schulz.
She said that while she and her husband enjoyed tax cutshanded out over the years, she had no idea the hardship it would bring for businesses down the road. The state cut the unemployment tax rate for businesses during good economic times in the 1990s and 2000. A year after the recession hit in 2008, the fund was nearly depleted, forcing the state to rely on the federal government to cover unemployment benefits.
"If I had of known, I would have asked someone why they were cutting it to the bare bones," she said.
Schulz suspects the reduction in benefits to the unemployed will pinch many working families, but she believes the limits may offer the extra incentive to find work more quickly. Mostly, though, she believes there is waste in the system.
This month, the state Division of Employment Security mailed Schulz an update on the unemployment system. In the report, state leaders said they were trying to collect more than $50 million in benefits they believe were paid erroneously to unemployed workers.
"I have no control over the state's spending," Cindy Schulz said. "Yet I end up paying because of all the state's mistakes."
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Copyright 2013 - The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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