Everything We Know About the Long-Term Unemployed

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/everything-we-know-about-the-long-term-unemployed/252551/


Understanding this chart: I'm tracking the growth in unemployment by DURATION with the shortest-term unemployed in orange at the bottom, and the long-term unemployed in blue at the top. I've indexed all numbers to begin at 100 in January 2007. Takeaway 1: People unemployed for 15-26 weeks (red) have doubled. Takeaway 2: People unemployed for 27 weeks and over have quadrupled.

See that graph? Click it. Print it. Tape it to your wall, and maybe give it some lamination. This is what the tragedy of long-term unemployment looks like, with the blue line tracking the quadrupling of those unemployed six months or longer.

The U.S. economy got some much-needed good news this afternoon when the January jobs report showed the unemployment rate falling to its lowest level since the second month of Obama's presidency. Every single indicator -- from hourly pay to unemployment among non-college graduates -- got better.

But here's the really bad news: There are still 5.5 million people out of work for six months or longer. That's enough to fill the state of Minnesota. And even this stat probably understates the crisis. Another 6 million people who should be in the labor force have stopped looking for work entirely. It's safe to assume many of them dropped out of the market for jobs because they were unemployed for so long. Taken together, it's an 11 million-person crisis. Big enough to fill Ohio.

[JDPriestly]

1. If you have ever worked really hard at a job and gotten good reviews

for your work and then been laid off and found yourself unable to get a job, you just have an ache in your heart.

And for many years afterward, when you remember having been fired like that, you just feel so sad. It's heartbreaking -- perhaps literally.

It may be different if you were fired because you did something wrong, but when a company outsources your job or wants to hire someone younger (maybe the boss's kid?) or you were treated unjustly (sexual harassment anyone?) or the company was simply bought out and moved to another place, you never forget. It is very painful.

That is why Romney will not be elected. Never.

Being fired for no good reason other than the greed of your employer is a common experience these days.

Sometimes people find their way to a job that is better for them. But it takes a long time, and if you are over 50 -- chances are very low that you will ever earn a salary as good as what you earned in the job you lost.

Chances are even lower that you will get a job in a place in which you "fit in" with the other employees. You will be older in age but newer to the job and that is really hard for everyone to deal with. It shouldn't be, but it is. The Death of a Salesman is a pretty common experience for older employees.

No one wants a static job market in which employers can never make personnel changes. But the system we have is harming our country not just economically but in terms of human relations, family stability and social structure.

We just cannot go on with our current labor laws, laws that reward vulture employers like Romney.

[LongTomH]

2. Been there, done that, couldn't afford the T-shirt.

I was laid off from my programming job in 2005. After a few months, I found a $10 an hour job in a call center, where I was reporting to a kid in his 20s, with ear 'plugs,' who treated me with contempt.

A few years later, I got a chance to go back to my old company as a contractor, few benefits, no paid vacation, sick days or holidays. My contract was not renewed at the end of 2009; luckily I was able to hold out until I could retire at full social security.

I'm probably better off than many although I'm not where I wanted to be!

[MotorCityMan]

8. My situation is very similar, LongTomH

Laid off from my programming job in 2009, 2 months shy of 10 years at the company. Out of work for almost a year and a half before I found a call center, $11 an hour job. Been doing it a year now and hate it. I'm not the right sort of personality to be doing this kind of work, this job calls for an outgoing type and I'm more of an introvert. My boss is half my age, but at least does not treat me with contempt.

Just had an interview today for a programing job, so am keeping my fingers crossed.

[secondwind]

12. GOOD LUCK! I hope you get it!!!

[eggplant]

7. Been through it four times.

It sucks.

But on the bright side, I start my new gig on the 27th. Woot!

[JDPriestly]

13. Good Luck!

I hope you enjoy your new work.

[DaveJ]

16. About the age issue...

I've seen people over 50 hired at my last two companies and they fit in just fine.

OTOH, If one is 50 something and used to getting paid over $100k, then I could see it difficult getting another job in that range, unless new skills are learned. The only reason I've been able to keep my jobs, so far, is because I get paid the very bottom of the pay scale for the work I do. I do want more, but only if the situation is stable.

My ultimate goals is to not depend on an employer at all and start my own business. These days and moving forward, online work should become more possible, where age shouldn't matter in the slightest.

[chervilant]

3. Yippeeeeeeee!!!

Thank you so much for this post! I am one of the long-term unemployed! Like many others, I have an advanced degree, and exceptional job skills and ethics. I would LOVE to teach math to sixth and seventh graders, specifically because that is when we start to see a big increase in math anxiety, and what I call the "I hate math" syndrome. But, thanks to the vile corporatists who've usurped our media, our politics, and our global economy, I cannot even get an interview for a teaching position! (Thanks, Bill Gates--and you-know-who-else--for participating in the vilification of unions and veteran teachers!)

I am in the process of downsizing, so that I can move in with a friend who lives more than 900 miles away. I must give up more than two-thirds of my household goods, amassed over almost 40 years of independence and full participation in our nation's economy. I may never be able to maintain a separate household again...

Since I knew I was going to move, I resigned the pitiful part-time teaching gig I had last semester (earning less than $500 a month), so now the Unemployment people expect me to reimburse them over $1,200! Geez, I wonder if they think I can crap that out of my ass?!?

Yeah, a girl's gotta laugh, or I'd be pursuing my Kevorkian solution...

I can only hope that the rural area where I'll land will have far fewer math teachers. At the very least, I will be in a part of the country where I can do all the outdoors things I've been missing in Houston. I may end up a Wally-World greeter (and, wouldn't THAT be a gas, since I refuse to traffic with that vile corporation?), but if I cannot find a job, I'll be exercising that Kevorkian solution for real, before I become a major drag on ANY of my family of choice. That's precisely what the vile corporatists love: death by 'proxy.'

I wish all my fellow long-term unemployed the best of luck in the coming two decades. It's gonna be worse than anybody is admitting...

[Warpy]

4. They need to do it by age, too

Once people hit 45 or so, they're going to sit on that depressing blue line a hell of a lot longer than the sunny youths on that orange line.

I don't know what they expect people who are over 45 to do once they've lost everything they've saved or put into a 401K.

[DebJ]

9. Here's what we are to do:

Ride in the wheelchair being pushed over the cliff...remember that commercial?

[Atypical Liberal]

14. I agree. Needs to be shown by age.

[Neoma]

5. It's been 18 months for us...

[MannyGoldstein]

6. Hey, I know! Let's pass three bipartisan "free" trade agreements!

That'll do the trick.

(Don't politicians realize that they're savaging real people when they pull this bullshit?)

[HughBeaumont]

15. Yes. But it's what the handlers want.

Search me how anyone can logically expect crapitalism to continue using a ruthless and counterproductive combo of Friedmanomics, Free Traitoring and Chi-School bullshit.

[limpyhobbler]

10. that graph speaks volumes. nt

[fasttense]

11. I doesn't look like they added those people considered no longer in the labor force.

The labor force participation rate has dropped down to 63.7% from a high of 66.8% that's a decrease of 3.1%. That's about 4.5 million people who fell out of the labor force since the 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression began. Where did they go?