Long term unemployment still epically distressed

Conditions for the long term unemployed were mixed in January. Comparatively, they're still epically distressed. 

|
SoldAtTheTop
This chart shows the number of people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks and over since 2000. The rate has declined since it hit peak in 2010.

Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed were mixed in January and remained epically distressed by historic standards.

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.518 million or 42.9% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed increased to 21.1 weeks and the average stay on unemployment declined to 40.1 weeks, the highest level ever recorded.

Looking at the chart above (click for super interactive version) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Long term unemployment still epically distressed
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Paper-Economy/2012/0203/Long-term-unemployment-still-epically-distressed
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe