The executive director of WORKFORCE West Virginia believes the state’s Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund will continue to be stable heading into 2013.
Russell Fry told state lawmakers recently the fund had a balance of more than $117 million despite recent layoffs in the coal industry.
“We’ve truly had three hard months,” Fry said. “But all of our projections even with that show we’re going to be in good shape even through next year.”
Fry says traditionally Dec. and Jan. are the hardest months on the trust fund.
‘It’s usually the most unemployment, so we really will have a truer picture of where we’re going to go when we do a forecast in January,” Fry said.
The trust fund has collected $241 million from employers this year and paid out nearly $230 million in unemployment compensation.
West Virginia was one of only a handful of states that didn’t have to take a loan from the federal government during the recession to pay unemployment benefits to its residents. Other states still owe the federal government billions of dollars.