Petitioners — New York Telephone Co., American Telephone & Telegraph Co. Long Lines Department, Western Electric Co., and Empire City Subway Co. — are the four Bell Telephone Co. affiliates with facilities and employees in the State of New York.

The goal of the New York strike was to disassociate the New York units of the CWA from the nationally settled-upon contract and to dislodge petitioners from the “pattern” bargaining format long used by Bell affiliates. Under that format, management and International CWA officials would select two Bell affiliates with early contract expiration dates and would attempt to reach a settlement at both, which would then be used as the basis for the contracts at all Bell units around the country. In order to “break the pattern,” the New York CWA units refused to ratify the pattern contract *523agreed upon by the International CWA and the pattern-setting affiliates during the week-long national strike in July 1971, and most members of the New York units remained on strike. Although the International originally opposed the continuation of the strike, it eventually lent its support. The strike was settled when petitioners agreed to a modest, but precedentially significant, increase in wage benefits over the national pattern. 434 F. Supp. 810, 812-814, and n. 3 (SDNY 1977).

N. Y. Lab. Law § 590 (7) (McKinney Supp. 1978-1979). Eligibility for benefits turns on the recipient’s total unemployment and his capability and readiness, but inability, to gain work in his “usual employment or in any other for which he is reasonably fitted by training and experience.” §§ 591 (1), 591 (2).

Section 592 (McKinney 1977) is entitled “Suspension of accumulation of benefit rights.” Subsection (1) of that section, entitled “Industrial controversy,” provides:

“The accumulation of benefit rights by a claimant shall be suspended during a period of seven consecutive weeks beginning with the day after he lost his employment because of a strike, lockout, or other industrial controversy in the establishment in which he was employed, except that benefit rights may be accumulated before the expiration of such seven weeks beginning with the day after such strike, lockout, or other industrial controversy was terminated.”

In order to explain why the entire cost was not borne by the companies, it is necessary to describe in some detail the rather complicated method used by New York to compute employer contributions. The State maintains an “unemployment insurance fund” made up of all moneys available for distribution to unemployed persons. § 550 (McKinney 1977). A separate “unemployment administration fund” is maintained to finance the administration of the unemployment law. § 551.

The unemployment fund is divided into various “accounts.” The “general account” is primarily made up of moneys derived from federal contributions under 42 U. S. C. § 1103 (a part of Title IX of the Social Security Act), the earnings on all moneys in the fund, and, occasionally, employer contributions. N. Y. Lab. Law §§577 (l)(a), 577 (2) (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1978-1979). The money in the general account may be transferred to the administrative fund (the federally contributed money being specially set aside for this purpose, § 550 (3)) or used to finance refunds, the payment of benefits to certain employees who move into New York from out of state, and claims against “employer accounts” that show negative balances. §§577 (l)(b), 581 (l)(e) (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1978-1979).

Employer accounts, which make up the rest of the unemployment fund, contain all of the contributions from individual employers. The rate of contributions — above a minimum level charged to all employers — is generally based on the employer’s “experience rating,” i. e., the amount of unemployment benefits attributable to employees previously in his employ. §§570 (1), 581 (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1978-1979).

Employees are generally eligible for 156 “effective days” of benefits, which usually amount to about eight calendar months. §§ 523, 590 (4), 601 (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1978-1979). But not all of those benefits are attributed to the account, and thus reflected in the experience rating, of the employer who last employed the claimant. First, the account is only charged with four days of benefits for every five days during which the claimant was employed by that employer. If this computation exhausts the claimant’s tenure with a given employer, the benefits are then charged to the account of the recipient’s next most recent employer, or to the general account when the class of former employers of the recipient is exhausted. §581(l)(e) (McKinney Supp. 1978-1979). Second, special provisions limit the liability of employers for claimants who previously *525held down two jobs or were only employed part time. Ibid. Third, any benefits reimbursed by the Federal Government are not debited to employer accounts. Ibid. Finally, and most importantly, only one-half of the last 52 effective days of benefits available to a claimant are charged to the employer's account; the other half is debited to the general account, and that account is credited with amounts received from the Federal Government pursuant to the Federal-State Extended Unemployment'Compensation Act, 26 U. S. C. § 3304. N. Y. Lab. Law § 601 (4) (McKinney Supp. 1978-1979). Hence, it is not by any means accurate to state that the struck employer is charged with all of the unemployment benefits paid to striking employees. The Federal Government, and the class of New York employers as a whole, may also pay significant amounts of the benefits, as well as of the costs of administering the program.

In this case, for example, the payments to strikers commenced at a time when the unemployment account of petitioner New York Telephone Co. (TELCO) had credits of about $40 million. During the strike, about $43 million in benefits were paid to TELCO employees. Yet, TELCO’s account was not completely depleted during the period, apparently because other accounts were debited with approximately $3 million in benefits paid to its workers.

Based on its unemployment benefits “experience” during the strike, TELCO’s contributions to its unemployment account during the next two years were increased by about $16 million over what they would have been had no strike occurred. (The like figure for petitioners as a whole was just under $18 million.) See 434 F. Supp., at 813-814, and n. 4.

“Notwithstanding the State’s adamant position to the contrary, I regard it as a fundamental truism that the availability to, or expectation or receipt of a substantial weekly tax-free payment of money by, a striker is a substantial factor affecting his willingness to go on strike or, once on strike, to remain on strike, in the pursuit of desired goals. This being a truism, one therefore would expect to find confirmation of it everywhere. One does.” Id., at 813-814.

In the District Court’s opinion, as well as in petitioners’ briefs in this Court, the primary emphasis is on the impact of the availability of unemployment benefits on the striking employee. The District Court’s economic-impact analysis finds further support, however, in the separate impact that the New York scheme has on the struck employer, whose unemployment insurance contribution rate will increase in rough proportion to the length of the 8-weeks-plus strike. But, as the District Court apparently recognized, under an economic-impact test it makes little difference— assuming the same amount of money is involved — whether the result of the unemployment scheme is simply to provide payments to striking workers, or simply to exact payments from struck employers, or some of both.

The District Court regarded the State’s interest in making the payments as not of sufficient consequence to be a factor in its determination. Id., at 819.

49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq.

49 Stat. 639, as amended and recodified as the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, 26 U. S. C. § 3301 et seq., 42 U. S. C. § 501 et seq., § 1101 et seq.

"The animating force behind the doctrine of labor law pre-emption has been the recognition that nothing could more fully serve to defeat the purposes of the Act than to permit state and federal courts, without any limitation, to exercise jurisdiction over activities that are subject to regula^ tion by the National Labor Relations Board. See Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, [403 U. S. 274, 286]. Congress created the centralized expert agency to administer the Act because of its conviction — generated by the historic abuses of the labor injunction, . . . that the judicial attitudes, court procedures, and traditional judicial remedies, state and federal, were as likely to produce adjudications incompatible with national labor policy as were different rules of substantive law. See Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485, 490-491 (1953).” Sears, 436 U. S., at 218 (Brennan, J., dissenting).

29 U. S. C. § 158.

29 U. S. C. §157.

“Cases that have held state authority to be pre-empted by federal law tend to fall into one of two categories: (1) those that reflect the concern that ‘one forum would enjoin, as illegal, conduct which the other forum would find legal’ and (2) those that reflect the concern ‘that the [application of state law by] state courts would restrict the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Federal Acts.’ Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 TJ. S. 634, 644 (1958). ‘[I]n referring to decisions holding state laws pre-empted by the NLRA, care must be taken to distinguish pre-emption based on federal protection of the conduct in question . . . from that based predominantly on the primary jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board . . . , although the two are often not easily separable.’ Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 383 n. 19 *529(1969).” Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132, 138.

E. g., Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U. S. 468; Garner v. Teamsters, 346 U. S. 485; Hill v. Florida ex rel. Watson, 325 U. S. 538.

E. g., Iron Workers v. Perko, 373 U. S. 701; Plumbers v. Borden, 373 U. S. 690; Marine Engineers v. Interlake S. S. Co., 370 U. S. 173.

Cf. Nash v. Florida Industrial Comm’n, 389 U. S. 235, in which the Court held that the NLRA pre-empted a state policy of denying unemployment benefits to persons who filed unfair labor practice charges against their former employer. Relying upon § 8 (a) (4) of the Act, which makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to restrain or discriminate against an employee who files charges, the Court concluded that the state statute trenched on the employees’ federally protected rights contrary to the Supremacy Clause. 389 U. S., at 238-239.

For similar reasons, we reject petitioners’ contention that the NLRA at the least forbids the States from awarding benefits to participants in illegal strikes. See Communication Workers of America (New York Telephone Co.), 208 N. L. R. B. 267 (1974) (declaring part of the strike involved in this case illegal). Because such a rule would inevitably involve the States in ruling on the legality of strikes under § 8, it would invite precisely the harms that the pre-emption doctrine is designed to avoid.

Although a leading commentator in this area contends that “[t]here are numerous situations in which the conduct is not arguably protected or prohibited but state law is precluded,” Cok, Labor Law Preemption Revisited, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1337, 1364 (1972), the Court has been faced with such situations on only the two occasions discussed in text. Dicta in other cases, however, have occasionally been cited in this context. See Hanna Mining Co. v. Marine Engineers, 382 U. S. 181, 187; Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96 (negative implication of the holding); Garner v. Teamsters, supra, at 500.

29 U. S. C. § 187.

“This weapon of self-help, permitted by federal law, formed an integral part of the petitioner’s effort to achieve its bargaining goals during negotiations with the respondent. Allowing its use is a part of the balance struck by Congress between the conflicting interests of the union, the employees, the employer and the community. Electrical Workers Local 761 v. Labor Board, 366 U. S. 667, 672. If the Ohio law of secondary boycott can be applied to proscribe the same type of conduct which Congress focused upon but did not proscribe when it enacted § 303, the inevitable result would be to frustrate the congressional determination to leave this weapon of self-help available, and to upset the balance of power between labor and management expressed in our national labor policy. ‘For a state to impinge on the area of labor combat designed to be free is *531quite as much an obstruction of federal policy as if the state were to declare picketing free for purposes or by methods which the federal Act prohibits.’ Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U. S. 485, 500.” Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S., at 259-260.

“Whether self-help economic activities are employed by employer or union, the crucial inquiry regarding pre-emption is the same: whether ‘the exercise of plenary state authority to curtail or entirely prohibit self-help would frustrate effective implementation of the Act’s processes.’ Railroad Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S., at 380.” 427 U. S., at 147-148. See also id., at 147 n. 8

What was said in Super Tire Engineering Co. v. McCorkle, 416 U. S. 115, 123-124, about a state benefits plan for strikers that did not impose a contributory burden on struck employers applies with special force in the present case with its twofold impact:

“Rather, New Jersey has declared positively that able-bodied striking workers who are engaged, individually and collectively, in an economic dispute with their employer are eligible for economic benefits. This policy is fixed and definite. It is not contingent upon executive discretion. Employees know that if they go out on strike, public funds are available. The petitioners’ claim is that this eligibility affects the collective-bargaining relationship, both in the context of a five labor dispute when a collective-bargaining agreement is in process of formulation, and in the ongoing collective relationship, so that the economic balance between labor and management, carefully formulated and preserved by Congress in the federal labor statutes, is altered by the State’s beneficent policy toward strikers. It cannot be doubted that the availability of state welfare assistance for striking workers in New Jersey pervades every work stoppage, affects every existing collective-bargaining agreement, and is a factor lurking in the background of every incipient labor contract. The question, of course, is whether Congress, explicitly or implicitly, has ruled out such assistance in its calculus of laws regulating labor-management disputes.” See also Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U. S. 471, 492.

“[T]he conduct being regulated, not the formal description of governing legal standards, ... is the proper focus of concern” in pre-emption cases. Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U. S. 274, 292. Nevertheless, in assessing whether there is “conflicting [state and federal] regulation” of the conduct, ibid., the scope, purport, and impact of the state program may not be ignored.

For these same reasons, § 591 (1) may be distinguished from a hypothetical state law, unattached to any benefits scheme, that imposes a fine on struck employers who failed to come to terms with striking employees within an allotted time period.

When confronted with welfare programs, the Courts of Appeals have been unwilling to imply a pre-emptive congressional intent. Super Tire Engineering Co. v. McCorkle, 550 F. 2d 903 (CA3 1977), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 827; Francis v. Chamber of Commerce, 529 F. 2d 515 (CA4 1975) (mem.) (unreported opinion), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416; see ITT Lamp Division v. Minter, 435 F. 2d 989, 994 (CA1 1970), cert. denied, 402 U. S. 933. It is interesting to note that under the economic-impact test applied by the District Court in this case, there is no meaningful way, for pre-emption purposes, to distinguish between unemployment and welfare programs. See n. 5, supra.

This may be an overstatement. It is true that only Rhode Island has a statutory provision like New York’s that allows strikers to receive benefits after a waiting period of several weeks. See Grinnell Corp. v. Hackett, 475 F. 2d 449, 457-459 (CA1 1973). But most States provide benefits to striking employees who have been replaced by nonstriking employees, and many States, pursuant to the so-called “American rule,” allow strikers to collect benefits so long as their activities have not substantially curtailed the productive operations of their employer. See Hawaiian Telephone Co. v. Hawaii Dept. of Labor & Industrial Relations, 405 F. Supp. 275, 287-288 (Haw. 1976), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 943. For example, in Kimbell, Inc. v. Employment Security Comm’n, 429 U. S. 804, this Court dismissed for want of a substantial federal question an appeal from the Supreme Court of New Mexico which had held that a retroactive post-strike award of unemployment benefits to strikers under the “American rule” was not pre-empted by federal labor law.

Despite the experience-rating system, it is almost inevitable that some of the unemployment payments will be charged to the individual accounts of nonstruck employers as well as to a general account funded by the entire class of employers and by the Federal Government. See n. 4, supra.

“But respondent argues that the benefits paid from the Louisiana Unemployment Compensation Fund were not collateral but direct benefits. With this theory we are unable to agree. Payments of unemployment compensation were not made to the employees by respondent but by the state out of state funds derived from taxation. True, these taxes were paid by employers, and thus to some extent respondent helped to create the fund. However, the payments to the employees were not made to discharge any liability or obligation of respondent, but to carry out a policy of social betterment for the benefit of the entire state. See Dart’s La. Gen. Stat., 1939, §4434.1; In re Cassaretakis, 289 N. Y. 119, 126, 44 N. E. 2d 391, 394-395, aff’d sub nom. Standard Dredging Co. v. Murphy, 319 U. S. 306; Unemployment Compensation Commission v. Collins, 182 Va. 426, 438, 29 S. E. 2d 388, 393. We think these facts plainly show the benefits to be collateral. It is thus apparent from what we have already said that failure to take them into account in ordering back pay does not make the employees more than 'whole’ as that phrase has been understood and applied.

“Finally, respondent urges that the Board’s order imposes upon it a penalty which is beyond the remedial powers of the Board because, to the extent that unemployment compensation benefits were paid to its discharged employees, operation of the experience-rating record formula under the Louisiana Act, Dart’s La, Gen. Stat., 1939 (Cum. Supp. 1949) §§ 4434.1 et seq., will prevent respondent from qualifying for a lower tax rate. We doubt that the validity of a back-pay order ought to hinge on *536the myriad provisions of state unemployment compensation laws. Cf. Labor Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 122-124. However, even if the Louisiana law has the consequence stated by respondent, which we assume arguendo, this consequence does not take the order without the discretion of the Board to enter. We deem the described injury to be merely an incidental effect of an order which in other respects effectuates the policies of the federal Act. It should be emphasized that any failure of respondent to qualify for a lower tax rate would not be primarily the result of federal but of state law, designed to effectuate a public policy with which it is not the Board’s function to. concern itself.” NLRB v. Gullett Gin Co., 340 U. S., at 364-365 (footnotes omitted). See also Carmichael v. Southern Coal Co., 301 U. S. 495, 508.

In broad outline, the federal scheme imposes a tax on employers which the States may mitigate (as all have done) by establishing their own unemployment programs. 26 U. S. C. § 3301. , State programs qualified by the Secretary of Labor are then eligible for federal funds. 42 U. S. C. §§ 504-503.

“Appellee cites only a single page of the voluminous legislative history of the Social Security Act in support of his assertion that the Act forbids disqualification of persons laid off due to a labor dispute at a related plant. That page contains the sentence: ‘To serve its purposes, unemployment compensation must be paid only to workers involuntarily unemployed.’ Report of the Committee on Economic Security, as reprinted in Hearings on S. 1130 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 1311, 1328 (1935).

“The cited Report was one to the President of the United States and became the cornerstone of the Social Security Act. On its face, the quoted sentence may be said to give some support to appellee’s claim that 'involuntariness’ was intended to be the key to eligibility. A reading of the entire Report and consideration of the sentence in context, however, show that Congress did not intend to require that the States give coverage to every person involuntarily unemployed.

“The Report recognized that federal definition of the scope of coverage would probably prove easier to administer than individualized state plans, id., at 1323, but it nonetheless recommended the form of unemployment compensation scheme that exists today, namely, federal involvement primarily through tax incentives to encourage state-run programs. The Report’s section entitled ‘Outline of Federal Act’ concludes with the statement:

“ ‘The plan for unemployment compensation that we suggest contemplates that the States shall have broad freedom to set up the type of unemployment compensation they wish. We believe that all matters in which uniformity is not absolutely essential should be left to the States. The Federal Government, however, should assist the States in setting up their administrations and in the solution of the problems they will encounter.’ Id., at 1326.” 431 U. S., at 482-483.

In addition to undercutting petitioners’ general argument that federal law restricts New York’s freedom to provide unemployment benefits to *538strikers, this legislative history also belies their more specific claim that involuntary unemployment must be “the key to eligibility” under Title IX-qualified programs.

“Indeed, study of the various provisions cited shows that when Congress wished to impose or forbid a condition for compensation, it was able to do so in explicit terms.16 There are numerous examples, in addition to the one set forth in n. 16, less related to labor disputes but showing congressional ability to deal with specific aspects of state plans.17 The fact that Congress has chosen not to legislate on the subject of labor dispute disqualifications confirms our belief that neither the Social Security Act nor the Federal Unemployment Tax Act was intended to restrict the States’ freedom to legislate in this area.

“16See, for example, 26 U. S. C. §3304 (a) (5), which from the start has provided:

“‘(5) compensation shall not be denied in such State to any otherwise eligible individual for refusing to accept new work under any of the following conditions:

“ '(A) if the position offered is vacant due directly to a strike, lockout, or other labor dispute;

“'(B) if the wages, hours, or other conditions of the work offered are substantially less favorable to the individual than those prevailing for similar work in the locality;

“‘(C) if as a condition of being employed the individual would be required to join a company union or to resign from or refrain from joining any bona fide labor organization.’

“17 See Employment Security Amendments of 1970, 84 Stat. 695; Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 1971, 85 Stat. 811; Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 1869; Unemployment Compensation Amendments of 1976, 90 Stat. 2667.” Id., at 488-489, and nn. 16, 17.

“A wide range of judgment is given to the several states as to the particular type of statute to be spread upon their books. For anything *539to the contrary in the provisions of this act they may use the pooled unemployment form, which is in effect with variations in Alabama, California, Michigan, New York, and elsewhere. They may establish a system of merit ratings applicable at once or to go into effect later on the basis of subsequent experience. . . . They may provide for .employee contributions as in Alabama and California, or put the entire burden upon the employer as in New York. They may choose a system of unemployment reserve accounts by which an employer is permitted after his reserve has accumulated to contribute at a reduced rate or even not at all. This is the system which had its origin in Wisconsin. What they may not do, if they would earn the credit, is to depart from those standards which in the judgment of Congress are to be ranked as fundamental.” 301 U. S., at 593-594.

In Batterton, the Court was faced with the question of whether the eligibility criteria for certain unemployment benefits under Title IV of the Act (AFDC-UF) were to be set nationally by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare or locally by each State. The Court found the presumption in favor of “cooperative federalism” and the free play of “legitimate local policies in determining eligibility” strong enough to overcome considerable “varian[t]” legislative history concerning a recent amendment to the statute. Thus, despite references in the congressional Reports accompanying the amendment to “a uniform” and “a Federal definition of unemployment,” the Court concluded that Congress had not intended to replace the various state definitions of unemployment with a federal one, and it specifically left the States free to provide benefits to strikers. This result is the more persuasive in the present context because the Batterton Court, citing Hodory, commented that the federal restraints imposed on state unemployment programs by Title IX are “not so great” — and thus not as likely pre-emptive — as those imposed by Title IV. 432 U. S., at 419.

The force of the legislative history discussed in Hodory, Steward, and Batterton, comes close to removing this case from the pre-emption setting altogether. In light of those decisions, the case may be viewed as presenting a potential conflict between two federal statutes — Title IX of the Social Security Act and the NLRA — rather than between federal and *540state regulatory statutes. But however the conflict is viewed, its ultimate resolution depends on an analysis of congressional intent.

See also Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corp., 347 U. S. 656 (threats of violence); Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc., 355 U. S. 131 (violence); Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634 (violence); Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U. S. 53 (libel); Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290 (intentional infliction of mental distress).

See Grinnell Corp., 475 F. 2d, at 454-457; Hawaiian Telephone Co., 405 F. Supp., at 285-286; Dow Chemical Co. v. Taylor, 57 F. R. D. 105, 108 (ED Mich. 1972).

See generally Steward, 301 U. S., at 593-594.

Wagner was also a prominent advocate of local freedom of choice with respect to unemployment benefits programs. In introducing the bill that became the Social Security Act to the Senate Committee on Finance, he stated:

“With growing recognition of the need for unemployment insurance, there has come considerable sentiment for the enactment of a single and uniform national system. Its proponents advance the argument, among others, that only in this way can a worker who migrates from New York to New Mexico be kept under the same law at all times. This, of course, is true. But there are an infinitely greater number of workers, and industries, that remain permanently within the boundaries of these two States, respectively, and that are permanently subjected to entirely different industrial conditions. European experience with unemployment insurance has demonstrated that every major attempt, except in Russia, has been successful and has been continued. But it has also shown that widely varying systems have been applied to divergent economic settings. Our own extent of territory is so great, and our enterprises so dissimilar in far-flung sections, that we should, at least for a time, experiment in 48 separate laboratories.” Hearings on S. 1130 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1935).

See S. Rep. No. 628, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 13 (1935).

Senator Wagner, in particular, had long taken an active interest and role in the design of social welfare and labor legislation in his home State of New York. Before leaving that State’s legislature for the national one, for example, he had been the moving force behind such landmark statutes as New York’s workmen’s compensation law. See Webster’s American Biographies 1081 (C. Van Doren & R. McHenry eds. 1974).

This controversy, in fact, had troubled the National Government for at least two years preceding the passage of the Social Security and Wagner Acts. In July 1933, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration ruled that unemployed strikers would be eligible for relief benefits, a policy that was carried out amid considerable outcry from the press and the business community during the textile strike of September 1934. I. Bernstein, Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941, p. 307 (1970). During the same weeks as the newspapers carried stories about the strike, in fact, Senator Wagner was revising previously offered labor-relations proposals into a new bill that became the NLRA. Id., at 323.

This provision, 26 U. S. C. §3304 (a)(5), is quoted in n. 29, supra.

During the hearings on the Social Security Act, written submissions offered by both Edwin Witte, Director of the President’s Committee on Economic Security, on behalf of that Committee’s Advisory Council, and Abraham Epstein, representing the American Association for Social Security, a citizen’s group devoted to promoting social security legislation, recommended withholding benefits from strikers during a strike. Hearings on S. 1130, supra n. 36, at 228, 472. An even stronger suggestion, which would have disqualified strikers even after the strike was over, was made by a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers.

It is also probative that just two weeks after the Social Security Act became law Congress, in its capacity as the legislature for the District of Columbia, passed an unemployment program for that locality which expressly precluded strikers from receiving benefits so long as a labor dispute was in “active progress.” Act of Aug. 28, 1935, ch. 794, § 10 (a), 49 Stat. 950. That it included the restriction in the local Social Security Act, but not in the national one, suggests the strength of its commitment to free local choice. That it did so is also important evidence that it neither assumed nor intended that its passage of the NLRA seven weeks earlier would pre-empt the payment of benefits to strikers in any case.

Of these four antistriker proposals considered by Congress during 1935, it is interesting to note that three allowed former strikers to receive benefits once the strike was ended. In light of these provisions, it seems clear that Congress perceived the opposition to such benefits not simply as a reflection of the view that voluntary unemployment should never be compensated but also as a concern with the nonneutral impact of such benefits on labor disputes. Its refusal explicitly to go along with that opposition on the national level with respect to the Social Security Act is thus all the more relevant to its intent in passing the NLRA several weeks earlier.

“Except for a few standards which are necessary to render certain that the State unemployment compensation laws are genuine unemployment compensation acts and not merely relief measures, the States are left free to set up any unemployment compensation system they wish, without dictation from Washington. The States may or may not add employee contributions to those required from the employers. Of the 5 States which have thus far enacted unemployment compensation laws, 2 require *544employee contributions, and 3 do not. Likewise, the States may determine their own compensation rates, waiting periods, and maximum duration of benefits. Such latitude is very essential because the rate of unemployment varies greatly in different States, being twice as great in some States as in others.” S. Rep. No. 628, supra n. 37, at 13.

The contemporaneous interpretation of Title IX by the Social Security Board, the administrative agency originally charged by Title IX of the Act with qualifying state statutes for federal funds, bears out this concluáon. Within a short time after the Act was passed, the Board approved the New York statute which provided benefits to strikers. The Labor Department has periodically followed suit since it took over authority in the area. 566 F. 2d 388, 393-394.

Congress twice has considered and rejected amendments to existing laws that would have excluded strikers from receiving unemployment benefits. The House version of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 included a provision denying § 7 rights under the NLRA to any striking employee who accepted unemployment benefits from the State. H. R. 3020, § 2 (3), 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947). This provision, which responded to public criticism of Pennsylvania’s payment of benefits to striking miners in 1946, was rejected by the Senate and deleted by the Conference Committee. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 32-33 (1947). Although the deletion was not explained, the House Minority Report suggests a reason: “Under the Social Security Act, however, the determination [of eligibility] was advisedly left to the States.” H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 68 (1947).

In 1969, the Nixon Administration proposed an amendment to the *545Social Security Act that would have excluded strikers from unemployment compensation eligibility. Speaking in opposition to the proposal, Congressman Mills made the following comment:

“We have tried to keep from prohibiting the States from doing the things the States believe are in the best interest of their people. There are a lot of decisions in this whole program which are left to the States.

“For example, there are two States, I recall, which will pay unemployment benefits when employees are on strike, but only two out of 50 make that decision. That is their privilege to do so. . . . I would not vote for it ... , but if the State wants to do it we believe they ought to be given latitude to enable them to write the program they want.” 115 Cong. Rec. 34106 (1969).

Congress rejected the proposal.

On two other occasions, Congress has confronted the problem of providing purely federal unemployment and welfare benefits to persons involved in labor disputes. In both instances, it has drawn the eligibility criteria broadly enough to encompass strikers. 45 U. S. C. § 3.54 (a-2) (iii) (Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act); 7 U. S. C. § 2014 (c) (Food Stamp Act). It thereby rejected the argument that such elibility forces the Federal Government “to take sides in labor disputes.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-1402, p. 11 (1970).

My Brother SteveNs correctly observes that our past pre-emption cases have dealt with statutes that regulate private conduct, rather than confer public benefits, but does not make clear why these different objectives justify different levels of scrutiny. Furthermore, although the distinction between laws of general applicability and laws directed particularly at labor-management relations perhaps has more significance in the application of the principles of Machinists than in the application of pre-emption principles where Congress has arguably protected or prohibited conduct, see Cox, Labor Law Preemption Revisited, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1337, 1355-1356 (1972), I am not at all sure that the New York statute is a law of general applicability. See id., at 1356; Powell, J., dissenting, post, at 557, and n. 10. I find more substance in my Brother SteveNs’ conclusion that the legislative history of the Social Security Act supports the argument that New York's law should be accorded a deference not unlike that accorded state *547laws touching interests deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility. Indeed, he may be correct in suggesting that this case is more a case of conflicting federal statutes than a pre-emption case, ante, at 539-540, n. 32.

See Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132, 134-135, 140-148 (1976).

The tension between the value of freedom of contract and the legal ordering of the collective-bargaining relationship is discussed in H. Wellington, Labor and the Legal Process, ch. 2 (1968).

See NLRA §8 (d), 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d); Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U. S. 99, 102-104 (1970); Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, 295-296 (1959); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 45 (1937).

“An appreciation of the true character of the national labor policy-expressed in the [NLRA] indicates that in providing a legal framework for union organization, collective bargaining, and the conduct of labor disputes, Congress struck a balance of protection, prohibition, and laissez faire in respect to union organization, collective bargaining, and labor disputes that would be upset if a state could also enforce statutes or rules of decision resting upon its views concerning accommodation of the same *553interests.” Cox, Labor Law Preemption Revisited, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1337, 1352 (1972).

The Court stated:

“[I]f the Board could regulate the choice of economic weapons that may be used as part of collective bargaining, it would be in a position to exercise considerable influence upon the substantive terms on which the parties contract. . . . Our labor policy is not presently erected on a foundation of government control of the results of negotiations. . . . Nor does it contain a charter for the [Board] to act at large in equalizing disparities of bargaining power between employer and union.” 361 U. S., at 490.

Petitioner TELCO’s employees collected $43 million in compensation. Of this amount, approximately $40 million was paid from TELGO’s account in the unemployment insurance fund. 566 F. 2d 388, 390 (CA2 1977); 434 F. Supp. 810, 812-813 (SDNY 1977). The proportion of the $6 million in compensation paid to employees of the other petitioners from the accounts of their employers does not appear in the record. But the overall element of nonemployer financing of compensation is so small that the Court of Appeals simply stated that “New York’s unemployment insurance system is financed entirely by employer contributions, so the cost of making these payments was borne by the struck employers.” 566 F. 2d, at 391.

The petitioners’ own tax rates are tied directly to the payments made to their employees by the so-called “experience rating system.” Under that system, an employer’s rate in any given period varies from the standard of 2.7% primarily according to the amount of benefits paid to its employees during prior periods. N. Y. Lab. Law § 581 (McKinney 1977 and Supp. 1978-1979).

The impact of unemployment compensation for strikers on the collective-bargaining process could be reduced significantly if such payments were funded from general tax revenues. The disruptive effect also would be lessened, though not as markedly, if such payments were funded by the unemployment compensation tax but were not taken into account in calculating experience ratings of individual employers. New York has eschewed both of these middle paths, however, in favor of a system in which such payments are financed directly by the struck employer.

New York is not alone in the course it has chosen. Although New York and Rhode Island are the only States that provide unemployment compensation for all covered employees idled by a strike, a number of other States pay unemployment compensation to strikers under varying conditions. See Grinnell Corp. v. Hackett, 475 F. 2d 449, 457, and n. 7 (CA1), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 858 (1973); Albuquerque-Phoenix Exp., Inc. v. Employment Security Comm’n, 88 N. M. 596, 600-601, 544 P. 2d 1161, 1165-1166 (1975), appeal dismissed sub nom. Kimbell, Inc. v. Employment Security Comm’n, 429 U. S. 804 (1976); U. S. Dept. of Labor, Comparison of State Unemployment Insurance Laws 4^41 (1972). All of those States appear to fund such payments from the unemployment compensation taxes paid by employers and calculated under an experience rating system. Staff Study of House Committee on Ways and Means, Information Relating to Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Laws 2-3 (1974).

At the time that Congress enacted the NLRA, unemployment compensation laws had been enacted in only five States, and only in Wisconsin had the State’s program gone into operation, a year earlier. S. Rep. No. 628, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1935). Wisconsin and three of the other States denied unemployment compensation to strikers. The New York law, with its limited provision for compensation to striking employees, would not pay any benefits for another two years. It is not at all remark*557able, therefore, that Congress overlooked the subject of unemployment compensation for strikers under these novel state programs during its consideration of the NLRA. Nor did Congress discuss the subject during its deliberations on the Social Security Act, which deals directly with state unemployment compensation programs. See Part III, infra.

The State’s adjustment of the relative economic strength of the parties to the collective-bargaining relationship is equally effective, and equally disruptive of the balance established by the NLRA, whether it takes the form of restricting or supporting a party’s activities in furtherance of its bargaining demands.

This assessment and readjustment of the collective-bargaining relationship by the state legislature is especially obvious in the challenged New York statute, which contains a special eligibility rule requiring strikers to wait seven weeks longer than other unemployed workers before collecting compensation. See ante, at 523 n. 3.

In reviewing the history of the analogous decisions on the pre-emption of state-court jurisdiction, the Court has observed that “some early cases suggested the true distinction lay between judicial application of general common law, which was permissible, as opposed to state rules specifically designed to regulate labor relations, which were pre-empted,” but that this approach had been unsatisfactory. Motor Coach Employees v. Lockridge, 403 U. S. 274, 290-291 (1971).

The District Court found that the availability of unemployment compensation had a significant effect on the willingness of the petitioners' employees to remain on strike.

“Notwithstanding the State’s adamant position to the contrary, I regard it as a fundamental truism that the availability to, or expectation or receipt of a substantial weekly tax-free payment of money by, a striker is a substantial factor affecting his willingness to go on strike or, once on strike, to remain on strike, in the pursuit of desired goals. This being a truism, one therefore would expect to find confirmation of it everywhere. One does.” 434 F. Supp., at 813-814.

The Court of Appeals accepted this finding by the District Court. 566 F. 2d, at 390. The plurality’s opinion, as already noted, supra, at 555-556, also accepts without question the District Court’s findings on this point.

The plurality supports this approach to the New York law by reference to the Social Security Act, which commits to the States broad control over eligibility requirements for unemployment compensation. This aspect of the Social Security Act, the plurality concludes, makes it

“appropriate to treat New York’s statute with the same deference that we have afforded analogous state laws of general applicability that protect interests ‘deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility.’ With respect *560to such, laws, we have stated 'that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we could not infer that Congress had deprived the States of the power to act,’ San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 244.” Ante, at 539-540.

To qualify under federal law, a State’s unemployment compensation program must, among other things, provide that:

“(5) compensation shall not be denied in such State to any otherwise eligible individual for refusing to accept new work under any of the following conditions:

“(A) if the position offered is vacant due directly to a strike, lockout, or other labor dispute;

“(C) if as a condition of being employed the individual would be required to join a company union or to resign from or refrain from joining any bona fide labor organization.” Social Security Act § 903 (a)(5), 49 Stat. 640, 26 U. S. C. § 3304 (a) (5).

The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, after reviewing the legislative history, also concluded that “unambiguous Congressional intent is lacking” regarding the authorization of state unemployment compensation for striking employees. Grinnell Corp. v. Hackett, 475 F. 2d, at 457. As *562one commentator has concluded, “the absence of legislation and the absence of any discussion in the committee reports relating to this legislation are indicative [that] Congress did not anticipate in detail the problems which would arise when workers claimed benefits when their own unemployment was related either directly or indirectly to a labor dispute.” Haggart, Unemployment Compensation During Labor Disputes, 37 Neb. L. Rev. 668, 674 (1958).

The plurality also finds support for its holding by noting that Senator Wagner, a principal sponsor of both the NLRA and the Social Security Act, was familiar with New York’s unemployment compensation law, and that the Senate Report on the Social Security bill — in the portion thereof discussing the States’ freedom of choice with respect to such laws— expressly mentioned the New York statute as an example. The plurality’s opinion then reasons:

“Even though that reference [in the Senate Report] did not mention the subject of benefits for strikers, it is difficult to believe that Senator Wagner and his colleagues were unaware of such a controversial provision . . . .” Ante, at 541-542.

I agree with the plurality that any provision for unemployment compensation for strikers would have been controversial. Indeed, it strains credulity to think that the entire Congress and the scores of witnesses who testified with respect to this legislation ignored so controversial an issue. On a question of this importance, especially in its relation to the NLRA, there would have been hearings, testimony, lobbying, and debate. I am unwilling to assume that Senator Wagner was “aware of [this] controversial provision” and elected to avoid, by remaining silent, the normal democratic processes of legislation. In any event, the unexpressed awareness of Senator Wagner hardly can be imputed to other Members of the Congress.

Contrary to the implication in the plurality’s opinion, ante, at 543 n. 41, Mr. Witte, the Executive Director of the President’s Committee on *563Economic Security, did not recommend withholding benefits from strikers during a strike. The issue of unemployment compensation for strikers never arose during Mr. Witte’s testimony. The plurality’s reference is to a Report of the Advisory Council to the Committee on Economic Security, a group of 23 “laymen” assembled to “give practical advice to the committee [on Economic Security].” Hearings on S. 1130, at 225. See H. R. Rep. No. 615, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., App. (1935). Mr. Witte did not appear before the Senate Committee to support the report of the Advisory Council, and placed it in the record only at the request of the Senate Committee. The Report of the Committee on Economic Security did not refer to or comment on the subject of compensation for strikers, except perhaps indirectly in its statement that “[t]o serve its purposes, unemployment compensation must be paid only to workers involuntarily unemployed.” Report of the President’s Committee on Economic Security 21 (1935).

Similarly, the question of compensation for striking workers did not arise during the examination of the other two witnesses whose written submissions included suggestions that the Social Security Act should contain an explicit disqualification of strikers. See Hearings on S. 1130, supra, at 458-478, 919-959. The Court should be “extremely hesitant to presume general congressional awareness” of the issue of unemployment compensation for strikers “based only upon a few isolated statements in the thousands of pages of legislative documents.” SEC v. Sloan, 436 U. S. 103, 121 (1978).

Subsequent congressional inaction does not demonstrate an understanding that the Social Security Act modified the NLRA to allow payment of unemployment compensation to strikers. See ante, at 544-545, and n. 44. As the plurality acknowledges, ibid., the 1947 Conference Committee gave no reason for its rejection of an amendment to the NLRA that would have excluded strikers from the statute’s coverage if they collected unemployment compensation. The Committee may have decided that the amend*564ment was redundant, and so not worth the controversy it might provoke if included in the final bill sent to Congress: the House Report approving the amendment had stated that it was recommended to halt the “perversion” of the purposes of social security legislation. H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 12 (1947). The comments in 1969 of a single Congressman, delivered long after the original passage of the Social Security Act, are of no aid in determining congressional intent on this matter.

The plurality also cites the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA) and the Food Stamp Act, as evidence that Congress intended to allow the States to require employers to finance unemployment compensation to their striking employees. See ante, at 544-545, n. 44. These statutes are simply irrelevant to the question raised by this case. The RUIA, together with the Railway Labor Act, is part of a special system of labor-management relations separate and distinct from the general structure established in the NLRA. The availability of unemployment compensation for strikers within the jurisdiction of the RUIA is conditioned upon their compliance with restrictions on the right to strike that are much more onerous than those imposed by the NLRA. See Detroit & Toledo Shore Line R. Co. v. Transportation Union, 396 U. S. 142, 148-153 (1969); Railway & Steamship Clerks v. Railroad Retirement Bd., 99 U. S. App. D. C. 217, 222-223, 239 F. 2d 37, 42-43 (1956).

Unlike unemployment compensation, which is linked only to an interruption in the employee’s income, food stamps and other general welfare programs are available only when income and assets have become insufficient to supply necessities. See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 2014 (a) (1976 ed., Supp. Ill) (“Participation in the food stamp program shall be limited to those households whose incomes and other financial resources . . . are determined to be a substantial limiting factor in permitting them to obtain a more nutritious diet”). Such welfare programs are funded out of general revenues rather than by taxes levied on the employers of those using the stamps. Moreover, when 7 U. S. C. § 2014 (c) was amended in 1977, the Congress *565deleted the proviso that “[r]efusal to work at a plant or site subject to a strike or a lockout for the duration of such strike or lockout shall not be deemed to be a refusal to accept employment.” See 7 U. S. C. § 2014 (c) (1976 ed., Supp. III).

Cf. Nash v. Florida Industrial Comm’n, 389 U. S. 235, 239 (1967) (eligibility requirement in the State’s unemployment compensation law, interfering with NLRA’s policy of protection for employees filing unfair labor practice charges with the Board, held pre-empted).

The Solicitor General would escape this implication of the plurality’s construction of the Social Security Act by concluding that at some point between 50% and 100% of weekly wages, or between an 8-week waiting period and none at all, the policy of the Social Security Act would give way to that of the NLRA.

“It is unnecessary to determine in this case the ultimate scope of the states’ freedom to make payments to strikers that may intrude on or dis*566rupt the collective bargaining process. . . . For example, a statute requiring an employer to pay its employees — through the state unemployment compensation system — 100 percent of wages from the beginning of a strike to- the end would appear to be so far beyond the focus of the Social Security Act and so destructive of the principles of the NLRA as to be beyond the contemplation of Congress in permitting some freedom of choice to the states.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25 n. 25.

But the Solicitor General is no more successful in identifying the source of this limitation on the modification of the NLRA by the Social Security Act than is the plurality in identifying the source of the modification itself. The plurality refrains from compounding insupportable inferences, apparently accepting instead the open-ended implications of its conclusion that New York is free to pay such unemployment benefits to strikers as it desires.

See Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U. S. 497, 515-516 (1978) (Stewart, J., dissenting) (“I do not believe, however, that inferences drawn largely from what Congress did not do in enacting the Disclosure Act are sufficient to override the fundamental policy of the national labor laws to leave undisturbed 'the parties’ solution of a problem which Congress has required them to negotiate in good faith toward solving . . . .’ Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, 296”). This Court has often stated that implied repeals and modifications of statutes by subsequent congres*567sional enactments are justified only when the two statutes are otherwise irreconcilable. Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 550 (1974); United States v. Welden, 377 U. S. 95, 103 n. 12 (1964); United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188, 198-199 (1939); cf. Bulova Watch Co. v. United States, 365 U. S. 753, 758 (1961) (a specific statute controls over a general one without regard to priority of enactment).