As the Great Depression approached its worst, Wisconsin made the nation’s first governmental direct relief effort for the unemployed. On this date in 1932, it enacted unemployment insurance. Wisconsin was soon followed by a half-dozen other states before the Social Security Act in middecade moved all states to adopt such programs by 1937. Wisconsin’s program issued its first unemployment check in August in the amount of $15. By 2011, states and local governments took in almost $88 billion from the payroll tax to fund unemployment insurance. But they spent nearly $122 billion in such assistance, about double the outlay of 2009. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at <www.census.gov>.