South By North Strategies, Ltd.

From the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the November version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) …

The fact that we have had a job-seekers ratio above 4-to-1 for 152 weeks underscores the crucial need for continuing extended unemployment insurance benefits, which now last a maximum of 99 weeks. There are currently 5.6 million people in this country who have been unemployed for more than half a year, up from 1.2 million in 2007.  As the job-seekers ratio shows, what’s happening is not that millions of workers have become lazy, unskilled, or unproductive; it is that there are not enough jobs available. With the Congressional Budget Office projecting an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent at the end of this year, continuing federally funded unemployment insurance benefit extensions through 2012 would extend a lifeline to the families of millions of long-term unemployed workers, and generate spending that would support well over half a million jobs.