The percentage of the unemployed in this country that are long term is now over 40% and rising, 44% as of last month. Before this it hasn't gone above 25% or so, and that was in 1983 at the height of the Reagan recession. We were down around 10% thanks to Clinton, but we never really recovered from the 9/11 recession during Dubya's term, hovering around 17% or so, and because of that when this bunker buster hit, we shot up to 40%+.
It's going to take a decade to get back under 20%. And that's if we don't hit a double dip here in the next couple of years, which I still think is very likely.
By the way, states like Ohio have a 26 week limit on regular unemployment, but 99 weeks with the current extension law. A whole lot of people in Ohio went into limbo over St. Patricks' Day weekend and again over Easter weekend because the Republicans blocked unemployment extensions in March and again in April. Probably explains why Democrats are doing a tad better in Ohio than they were earlier this year.
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