Two-fifths of it is being financed by an unemployment-insurance fund that workers and firms pay into.

ECONOMIST: South Korea

Yet Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, last week surprised many by speaking of federalism and floating an intriguing idea: a Europe-wide unemployment-insurance fund.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

Some are now calling for the abolition of the agency and even the scrapping of the federal unemployment-insurance fund (if workers simply saved the 6.5% of gross wages that employers and employees now each contribute, that could give the newly jobless enough of a cushion to get through several months of unemployment).

ECONOMIST: Germany's welfare state: Dropping the pilot | The

The White House finally adopted the idea in its 2012 budget, and Congress, in a recent agreement to extend payroll-tax cuts and unemployment insurance, agreed to fund a version of it.

NEWYORKER: Replay