ABSTRACT
Most schemes for unemployment insurance limited coverage to able-bodied, willing employees who were without work due to economic conditions. The lazy, the destitute, the incapacitated and self-employed were all routinely excluded from insurance protection. Three basic kinds of subsidized unemployment insurance were offered in German cities after 1896. The first type of plan, involving optional funds, insured individuals who had suffered from unemployment. A second type of plan which involved proportional indemnity, coverage to union men and correlated its activities with municipal relief works and labor exchanges. Finally, the third type of insurance combined proportional indemnity with optional funds. The three areas of control which seemed to be of most widespread concern to those evaluating unemployment insurance were: determining whether the cause of unemployment legitimately entitled the insured to compensation; ascertaining whether unemployed subscribers were cheating the system, and finally, making sure that the insurance payments were sufficiently meagre to encourage unemployed workers to return to the labor force.
