As the pandemic lingers, more people are facing permanent job loss and a wave of Americans soon will have been out of work for more than six months, the threshold for long-term unemployment.
The Labor Department said on Friday that 2.4 million people had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, the threshold it uses to define long-term joblessness. An even bigger surge is on the way, as nearly five million people are approaching long-term joblessness over the next two months. The same report showed that even as temporary layoffs were on the decline, permanent job losses were rising sharply.
Those two problems — rising long-term unemployment and permanent job losses — are separate but intertwined. Together, they could foreshadow a period of prolonged economic damage and financial pain for American families. Learn more here.