"Trade unions invented insurance against the risk of unemployment. The union funds that proliferated across industrialising nations throughout the nineteenth century not only provided financial support for out-of-work union members, but also helped unions attract members and moderate the wage depressing effect of unemployment on those in work. But union funds, which tended to be established in higher-skilled and better-organised trades, could never provide comprehensive coverage against unemployment, and they risked bankrupting trade unions in severe downturns. In the first half of the twentieth century, governments therefore took on an ever-greater role in the financing and organisation of unemployment insurance, initially locally and then nationally...."

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