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Long-Term Unemployment
About This Indicator
What Is Long-Term Unemployment?
The share of the unemployed who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more, just past the 26 weeks state benefits have traditionally lasted.
Why Does It Matter?
It separates a gap between jobs from a trap. The longer a search runs, the more savings, skills, and confidence erode, so a long spell can feed on itself.
Can Politics Influence It?
Benefit rules, retraining, and the pace of recovery shape how long spells last. Extended benefits cut both ways: they can lengthen some searches, but because collecting requires looking, they keep in the count people who might have given up.
Key Idea
The unemployment rate says how many are jobless; this says how stuck they are. As a share it can mislead: in April 2020 it fell to 4% because fresh layoffs swelled the pool, then passed 40% within a year.
Scored: A Fall Ranks Better
Source: BLS. LNS13025703.
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