Long-term Unemployment Worst Since the Great Depression

by Leigh Graham · 2009-11-17 06:00:00 UTC
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Record-setting joblessness: it's not just for the elderly. 5.6M Americans have been out of work for at least 6 months; this is the highest proportion of workers out of work for that long since the Great Depression. Joblessness is highest among younger workers.

I've written about unemployment and joblessness a lot lately. Here's some other poverty news items I'd love to spend more time on as well:

  • A new documentary, "The End of Poverty" (in limited release), makes a case for capitalism's systematic inequality and hints at a need to resurrect Marxist critiques of our cherished economic system.

  • Speaking of leftist advocacy, ACORN has sued the federal government over the House's decisions to defund the anti-poverty group, saying it is unconstitutional and effectively deeming ACORN guilty without trial.

  • In DC, job training programs for public assistant recipients fail to tell 97% of enrollees about skills training programs that might actually help them find and keep jobs. That's one way to encourage self-sufficiency: designing failure right into aid programs!

  • Hawaii considers getting out of the public housing business entirely.

  • Is the Catholic Church's assault on women's healthcare in the reform debate an attempt to level the playing field for Catholic hospitals that currently provide a more limited range of health services than secular hospitals?

  • More school districts are basing busing decisions on income rather than race in an attempt to get mostly children of color out of low-performing schools.

  • NIMBYism comes to rural Maine to block housing for Latin@ farmworkers. 6 whole units worth.  Now that's a ghastly, infectious island of concentrated poverty if I've ever heard of one.

  • Happy Birthday Sesame Street! (5 days late, my bad!) Over 40 years, the program has moved from racial and economic integration and diversity training goals to foodie fads and wellness.  Discuss.

  • And this is a feel good story: West Philly inner-city high school kids beat MIT teams in a $10M green car contest not once, but twice. Sweet! Well done!

(Sesame Street sure looks scrubbed clean in that photo, don't you think?  Taken at Sesame Place by steve.ie)

Leigh Graham
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