The Michigan unemployment agency is formally known as the Michigan State Unemployment Insurance Agency. The Michigan Unemployment Agency developed during the Great Depression of the 1930s. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Committee of Economic Security that President Roosevelt convened drafted legislation that was meant to provide aid and succor to unemployed workers and support their families.
The first piece of legislation was the Wagner-Peyser Act, and the second the Social Security Act. After these two offices were created, each state was charged with establishing unemployment offices to distribute the Unemployment insurance benefits which were supplied through taxes against companies.
In order to adhere to regulations established by the federal government, Michigan passed the Michigan Employment Security Act to create the Michigan Unemployment Agency to implement federal laws and provide offices in order to implement the newly created federal regulations.
However, when the Michigan Employment Security Act was passed in 1936, the Michigan Unemployment Agency was first known as the Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission. It then became known as the Michigan Employment Security Commission, or MESC. The organization is still commonly referred to as such.
Since then, the name has changed to the Michigan Employment Security Agency, followed by the Michigan Unemployment Agency, then the Bureau of Workers’ and Unemployment Compensation, before finally being renamed the December 7, 2003, to the Unemployment Insurance Agency. Throughout the various appellations assigned to the agency, the Michigan Unemployment Agency has retained its core values of Integrity, Trust, Excellence, Employees, Inclusion, Teamwork, Customer Focus, and Communication.
