Graph of the Day: Unemployed for Over 26 Weeks, 1969-2009

From Calculated Risk:

The DOL report showed seasonally adjusted insured unemployment at 6.2 million, down from a peak of about 6.9 million. This raises the question of how many unemployed workers have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits (Note: most are still receiving extended benefits, although this is about to change). The monthly BLS report provides data on workers unemployed for 27 or more weeks, and here is a graph. The blue line is the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. The red line is the same data as a percent of the civilian workforce. According to the BLS, there are almost 5.0 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks (and still want a job). This is 3.2% of the civilian workforce. The good news is there wasn’t much of an increase from July. The bad news is many of these 5 million long term unemployed will start exhausting their extended unemployment benefits soon. According to the projections by the National Employment Law Project about 0.5 million will have exhausted their benefits by the end of this month (September) and about 1.5 million by the end of the year. …

Unemployment: Stress Tests, Unemployed over 26 Weeks, Diffusion Index