Unemployment figures show recovery-less recovery
Although unemployment rates dropped in July, the employment situation remains in a sorry state, even compared to the double-dip recession of the early 1980s.
This chart shows that conditions for Americans who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks have gradually improved since 2009.
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Yesterday's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed improved in July while still remaining distressed by historic standards.
Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 4.246 million or 37.0% of all unemployed workers, while the median term of unemployment declined to 15.7 weeks and the average stay on unemployment increased to 36.6 weeks.
Looking at the charts below, you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.