While the public debate over reforms to Employment Insurance centres on regional fairness in eligibility requirements, it is critical that the EI program remain affordable in good times and bad. To avoid pro-cyclical EI premium decreases during booms and harmful premium increases during...

Regionally based entry requirements and benefit durations prolong the persistence of unemployment and reduce economic incentives to adjust to labour-market conditions. Reforms aimed at equity are overdue. Regionally based criteria should be replaced by uniform, countrywide, employment insurance...

Canada's Employment Insurance program pays weekly benefits to the unemployed that vary in generosity across regions. While the variable entrance requirements help deliver more benefits to seasonal workers, the mechanism spreads the generosity of benefits to all workers in a region, raising the...