Long-Term Jobless

UI policies addressing the needs of the long-term jobless take on special significance when unemployment rises and growing numbers of workers exhaust their 26 weeks of unemployment benefits.   NELP resources are available documenting  state and federal initiatives that extend unemployment benefits and expand opportunities for job training.

Check out NELP's web initiative for unemployed workers  

The Rising Stakes of Job Loss: Never has long-term unemployment been this bad when the overall unemployment rate has been this low. This detailed examination of trends in the recent economic cycles explains how this changing picture of unemployment is putting the economic security of working families at risk. Detailed data shows that women, white collar workers and African Americans are increasingly bearing the burden.

Tough Times Continued for Jobless Families in 2004 - Still a Cold Holiday Season for Many. (December 2004) Three years into our ‘economic recovery,’ unemployed and underemployed families should be able to expect a brighter holiday season. However, our analysis of official government data reveals that jobless families had a much harder time escaping joblessness than they did during past periods of the same unemployment rate. 

New Job Growth Has Little Effect on Long-term Joblessness: For the 20th straight month (May 2004), more than one in five of the nation's jobless have been long-term unemployed. That's an all-time record, surpassing the prior record of the early 1980s when there was double-digit unemployment.  A new NELP survey of the long-term jobless documents what these troubling statistics really mean for those families who are now also without an unemployment check since Congress failed to reauthorize the extension of unemployment benefits.  

Experienced, Educated and Out of Work. (March 2004) This in-depth analysis of official Labor Department data (co-authored with the Economic Policy Institute) found that long-term unemployment reached a 20-year high in 2003. The study found that such severe joblessness rising fastest among the most well-educated, better paid and experienced workers.

Voices of the Unemployed. (June 2003) The limited federal extension of benefits passed by Congress on May 31, 2003 failed to meet the needs of many of long-term jobless.  Personal stories of the unemployed, taken from the NELP-sponsored website www.unemployedworkers.org, punctuate the shortfalls of federal policy towards the unemployed today.

The Broad Reach of Long-Term Unemployment. (May 2003) Long-term unemployment rates are on the rise—in April 2003, 21.8% of jobless workers had been out of work for more than six months, as compared to only 18.3% in 2002. This rise in long-term unemployment is particularly affecting college graduates, white-collar workers, and workers over 45 years old. This analysis, co-authored with the Economic Policy Institute, of new data describes the characteristics of today's long-term unemployed workers in the nation and several large states (FL, NY, NJ, IL, PA and TX).

NELP Releases New National Survey of the Unemployed. (May 2003) On May 7th, the National Employment Law Project released the results of a national survey of unemployed workers conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates.  As the debate about federal jobless aid heats up, the results of this compelling survey provide new insights into the impact of the struggling economy on today's unemployed workers. 

Blame the Economy, Not the Long-Term Jobless & the Unemployment System - House Republicans Hold “Return to Work” Hearing. (April 2003) NELP fact sheet respond to a planned April 10, 2003, US House of Representative Ways & Means Subcommittee hearing on whether UI causes unemployment.

Crisis of Long Term Unemployment is Far from Over. (February 2003) This analysis reports on the latest data exposing the breadth and depth of long-term unemployment, while calling attention to the need for a more adequate federal extension of unemployment benefits to respond proportionately to the problem.

Click here for more information on extended UI benefits.