What a difference a year makes.

• Position: Statewide - Report - Brief article

"Work is life, you know," John Lennon once said. "And without it, there's nothing but fear and insecurity." In December, nearly 400,000 North Carolinians were without work and looking for it. That's 8.7% of the labor force, nearly double what it was at the end of 2007. The number of jobless in December eclipsed the previous record--set the previous month--by 11%, and prospects for the first quarter of 2009 seem dim. Fear abounds.

As the chart shows, the surge in cast-off workers has strained the state's ability to pay unemployment benefits. Last year, North Carolina's unemployment-insurance trust fund coasted into February with $356 million. This year, it stumbled in with $16 million, and by Valentine's Day the Employment Security Commission was forced to pull $13 million from a $540 million federal line of credit. It borrowed 23 times during the last...