Welcome to America 2011: The 'Forgotten' Jobless

Interesting article that sums up a sobering predicament for the unemployed (of which there are millions and millions):

The Forgotten Jobless and Our Future by Workers Action
Thursday Jan 20th, 2011 5:51 PM
In the political theater exhibited last December where 13 months of unemployment extensions were linked to continuing tax breaks for the rich, a significant issue was left out of the drama, though it directly impacts the lives of millions. That is the fate of those who have become known as the 99ers.
The 99ers are those who have not been able to find a job, though they have exhausted all their employment benefits. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits peaked from November 2008 to May 2009. Ninety-nine weeks later those still unemployed had exhausted their benefits and disappeared from the official unemployment statistics. They no longer have a social safety net to land in and crawl out of.



Their numbers and continuing growth are staggering, and their desperate situation effects all working class Americans -- employed and unemployed. The fact that their fate was left unaddressed last December, while the economic top one percent were allowed hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, says a lot about the political priorities of those who set policy in this country and whose voices they listen to.
Long-term joblessness has been an especially pronounced problem in the Great Recession. Those out of work for longer than six months make up 45.9 percent of all those unemployed. Those out of work for over a year make up 23 percent. This situation is not improving. For every job there are still a minimum of five workers competing to get it. According to the Federal Reserve's extended forecast, the unemployment rate in 2011 will not go below nine percent, and in 2012 it will remain at eight percent or higher.
This bleak outlook is all the more difficult for the 99ers since employers frequently use a long period of unemployment as a reason not to hire workers. It has been estimated that there are over two million 99ers. By the end of 2011, this number is expected to increase by four million, with the peak month for unemployment benefit cutoffs occurring in April.
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