Imagine a government program that is supposed to help the unemployed but actually reaches only four of 10 jobless workers. Imagine one that provides only enough support to ensure poverty, a step or two up from destitution. Imagine that despite this poor performance, the system not only is scheduled to go broke but to run a deficit of $200 million within six years.

Welcome to the Maine Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, unfortunately not a figment of your imagination but a looming problem the Legislature has ducked for years.

The trouble with the system is fairly straightforward: Unemployment benefits, while still the lowest in New England, have nevertheless increased over the years; the wage base for taxable wages, however, has not. That has meant that even during these times of unusually low unemployment, the trust fund is not replenishing itself fast enough. A recession would sink it.

For the last 15 years the taxable wage base has stood at $7,000. Though the tax is paid by employers, it, like health care coverage, ultimately is an expense shared by both employers and employees because increases or decreases in these benefits affect wages. The maximum weekly benefit in Maine is $227. The average benefit is $174.

Businesses, generally, loathe the idea of increasing the taxable wage base for unemployment, though study after study says that is exactly what is needed to keep the system operating. Interestlingly, besides keeping workers afloat during times of unemployment, the trust fund also was created in the 1930s to help businesses by allowing consumers to pay off bills and buy goods. In any event, lawmakers have prevented the fund from depleting by increasing the contribution rate on the taxable wage. It went up .4 percent in 1997 and, absent reform, was later extended through 1998. The rate now ranges between 2.4 percent and 7.5 percent.

Most people who have studied the system agree that simply raising the rate will not work forever — the system moves closer to failure and the high number of unemployed workers remains. Another study, this one last year by the Commission to Study the Unemployment Compensation System concluded that the taxable base should be raised to $12,000, develops a broader rate system to determine what an employer should pay and expands the poll of covered workers to include seasonal and part-time. It also recommends collecting data on the scope of the problems of people quitting work for lack of child care or transportation.

The unemployment fund is like Social Security in the sense that making small changes early is easier than trying to make large changes on the edge of a crisis. It’s too late for early changes with the unemployment fund, but Maine can still act before crisis settles in. Instead of passing patch jobs this session, the Legislature should plan on a true overhaul of the system.