More US Women Have Been Jobless For More Than Six Months Than In 2007; Overall The U.S. Has More Than Double The Long-Term Unemployed
And the situation is worse for women, according to a study released Wednesday from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute, which studies the effect of community development on vulnerable children, youth and families.
“We’re seeing a growing proportion of females among the long-term unemployed,” said Andrew Shaefer, doctoral candidate at the university’s Department of Sociology and author of the study, which analyzes data from the official Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The problem of long-term unemployment is currently being debated in the Senate. Republicans have demanded that the $6.8 billion cost of further extending emergency unemployment benefits to 1.3 million Americans would have to be covered with cuts to other public spending programs.
Emergency jobless benefits have been extended 11 times since President George W. Bush first implemented them in 2008. Extended benefits are covered federally while standard jobless benefits are covered federally and with state and local contributions.
Overall, the percentage of long-term unemployed, defined as anyone who has been looking for work for at least six months, stood at 39 percent of all jobless, working-age Americans last year. That’s more than double the number of jobless in this category in 2007.
The so-called Great Recession began in December of that year and the data regarding the long-term unemployed suggest the effects of the economic downturn have not abated for the working and jobless poor.