In the coming months, hundreds of thousands more will drop off the unemployment rolls. The number of people using up their regular 26 weeks of unemployment payments peaked in August 2009 at nearly 800,000 a month. That means a lot of people should be hitting their 99-week limit right about now. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/04/30/number-of-the-week-millions-set-to-lose-unemployment-benefits/
Last month more than 14 million Americans were unemployed by the official definition — that is, seeking work but unable to find it. Millions more were stuck in part-time work because they couldn’t find full-time jobs. And we’re not talking about temporary hardship. Long-term unemployment, once rare in this country, has become all too normal: More than four million Americans have been out of work for a year or more. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1
These and many other facts speak to an unpleasant and unusual reality for the United States. The country now has an unemployment problem that is large in magnitude and increasingly structural in nature. The consequences are multifaceted, involving immediate personal anguish, rising social and political tensions, economic losses, and budgetary pressures. . . . more than a problem for the here and now. High and intractable unemployment has serious negative long-term consequences that threaten to become exponentially worse. This is a crisis. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/elerian4/English
