Long-Term Unemployed Still a Fly in Recovery Ointment

The U.S. labor market is slowly healing. Much of the recent data point in that direction -- but the scars of this financial crisis run deep. Nowhere are those scars more visible than in the area of long-term unemployment. “There's an egregious problem with long-term unemployment in this cycle that's going to take some time and maybe some policy action to correct,” said Cliff Waldman, an economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, a public policy organization in Arlington, Va. The number of Americans who've been out of work for 27 weeks or more, the government's definition for long-term unemployment, soared after the financial meltdown in the fall of 2008. According to a recent study by RBC Global Management, the number approached 7 million during the peak of the financial crisis in 2009, up from about 1 million two years earlier, and has fallen only slightly from that high-water mark in the three years since. Continue reading this article

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