Unemployment in U.S

Unemployment in U.S in March 2012

Introduction

In October 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate hit 10% for the first time in decades; it has hovered slightly under that level for most of 2010. The unemployment crisis is largely a result of the recession that began in December 2007 and worsened drastically in the wake of a major financial crisis the following year.

Discussion

In October 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate hit 10% for the first time in decades; it has hovered slightly under that level for most of 2010. The unemployment crisis is largely a result of the recession that began in December 2007 and worsened drastically in the wake of a major financial crisis the following year. Making matters worse for the jobless, state unemployment benefits typically expire after several months. Although the duration and amount of benefits vary from state to state, benefits tend not to last longer than 99 weeks.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) keeps detailed statistics on the unemployed, classifying the jobless by duration of unemployment, reason for unemployment and many other criteria. There were about 14 million unemployed Americans in 2009. About 900,000 of them had voluntarily left their jobs, with 9 million having been laid off. About 3 million of the unemployed were attempting to reenter the work force after having not looked for work for a while, while about 1 million of the unemployed had never worked full-time before and were seeking their first job (www.americanprogress.org).

Unemployment: Race, Gender, Education, Age

About 8 million of the unemployed were men, and around 6 million were women. About 10.6 million were white, 2.7 million were Hispanic, 2.6 million were black and 500,000 were Asian. The current recession has been largely characterized by bouts of long-term unemployment—people who had been jobless for more than 27 weeks. The long-term unemployed comprised the largest segment—31.5%—of the unemployed population. The unemployed, meanwhile, include people who worked in a variety of industries before they lost their jobs. The financial industry, which includes professions such as accounting, investment banking, insurance and real estate, has lost about 600,000 jobs. Indeed, the most recent recession originated in the financial sector. Banks had invested heavily in real estate, fueling a boom in the real estate market in the early 2000s. Home prices soared and many new properties were constructed. Additionally, banks were very eager to provide loans to people, even so-called subprime borrowers who could not ...