Following the announcement of May's jobs and unemployment data, the National Employment Law Project released a new analysis of the workers most severely impacted by the recession: the 6.8 million long-term unemployed.

The NELP study analyzes in careful detail the 46% of out-of-work Americans whose unemployment has exceeded six months - and often lasts for years - by gender, age, race, education background, industry and duration of unemployment, and demonstrates how long-term joblessness has engulfed every corner of the labor market.

"The long-term unemployed have become the unwitting poster child for everything that is lacking and wanting and urgent in the economic recovery. May's employment report is yet another heartbreaking tale of an economy lurching toward recovery, but leaving ever-growing numbers of long-term jobless workers behind. With nearly six jobless workers for every job opening and average durations of joblessness growing longer each month, the depth and despair of long-term unemployment is intensifying. Positive steps towards job growth, while welcome, are nevertheless dwarfed by a highway of long-term unemployment," said Christine Owens, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project.

The NELP findings come on the heels of Congress's failure last week to renew - for the fourth time this year - the COBRA subsidies, $25 weekly supplements and benefit extensions that were all passed as critical stimulus components of last year's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In addition to nearly 20,000 long-term unemployed workers left without federal aid until Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess on June 7th, lawmakers in the House - led by zealous deficit hawks on both sides of the aisle - have proposed eliminating the healthcare subsidy for hundreds of thousands of jobless workers who'll need the assistance in the months to come.

Noting that some in Congress are using budget deficits as a rationale for cutting back on critical assistance to the unemployed, Owens continued, "Our gravest deficit is in jobs-only by fixing that deficit and putting America back to work will we be able to tackle our fiscal deficits. We need look no further back than the latter half of the 1990's, when the economy added more than 14 million jobs, debt and deficits disappeared, and budget surpluses ballooned to know that the best solution for our budget woes is to create jobs and end the unemployment crisis. And every tool we first deployed over a year ago to stimulate the economy must continue if we are to meet this challenge. When Congress returns June 7th, the Senate must immediately continue the extension program through November and restore health care benefits. Cutting unemployment and COBRA benefits will only dampen recovery, and neglect millions who want jobs but cannot find them."

NELP's paper, The Crisis of Long Term Unemployment and the Need for Bold Action to Sustain the Unemployed and Support the Recovery, sheds light on exactly who the long-term unemployed are, and what the May employment report means for both the unemployed and long-term unemployed.

Over the two-year period beginning in December 2007, the number of long-term unemployed increased nearly five-fold. All demographics of workers have at least tripled their ranks of long-term unemployed. Among the demographics:

• Men account for 6 out of all 10 workers who have been out of work for six months or longer;
   
• Workers older than 45 make up the largest share of both the unemployed and long-term unemployed pool;
   
• Long-term unemployment has also affected certain racial groups more than others; Blacks, for example, make up 17.8% of the pool of unemployed workers but 20.8% of the long-term unemployed.

Despite job growth and other recent signs of recovery, hiring has been slow and not nearly enough to ameliorate trends of long-term joblessness - nearly 11 million jobs are needed to account for jobs lost and jobs that should have been added over the course of the recession.

With May employment figures, the number of unemployed has now nearly doubled over the course of the recession to 15.0 million. In that time, the average duration of unemployment has increased by 107% to 34.4 weeks, or 8 months.

The NELP study shows just how much unemployment dwarfs recent growth by juxtaposing job gains by industry with the number of people actually unemployed in those fields (page 4). For example, while manufacturing has added about 104,000 jobs in the first five months of 2010, there were nearly 829,000 long-term unemployed workers in the industry at the end of 2009.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, every dollar of federal extended benefits produces $1.93 in economic growth. Since February 2009, when the Recovery Act was enacted, it has provided a lifeline to families and the struggling economy. Currently, 5.1 million workers are collecting Emergency Unemployment Compensation, the temporary extension of federal jobless benefits. Since the program began, it has pumped $69.5 billion in federal benefits into communities hardest hit by the recession, plus another $12.9 billion thanks to the program's $25 boost in weekly benefits.

If Congress fails to continue these provisions, an estimated 144,000 per month could lose out on the 65 percent subsidy for COBRA health care benefits.

"Until the economic expansion is in full swing and unemployment down, jobs and support for those without them should be the nation's first priority. We cannot allow deficit hawks to pull the plug on benefits that are precisely the kind of stimulus that will get us out of this hole. You don't recover from the worst economic devastation since the Great Depression overnight, and you certainly can't do it without aggressive commitment to rebuilding the economy," said Owens.
 

NELP Study: The Crisis of Long Term Unemployment and the Need for Bold Action to Sustain the Unemployed and Support the Recovery