The official unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, but the turmoil in the American labor market is worse than that number suggests. Bad policy and economic circumstances are combining to create a European-style permanent underclass on our shores.
In November 2009, the average length of unemployment was just over 29 weeks. In April 2012, that number was 34.5 weeks. Almost a third of the more than 13 million unemployed Americans - that is, almost 4 million people - have been idle for more than year, according to the most recent Pew Trust report. As Pew noted, the problem of long-term unemployment is worse now than it was in 2008, the official start of the Great Recession.
Congress is making the situation worse by continually extending the length of unemployment benefits. When people are paid not to work, they don’t work. Pew projects spending for jobless compensation for 2012 at $99 billion, which is a big number even by profligate Washington standards.
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