As the deficit obsession continues, here’s some cheery news.

About 6.2 million Americans, 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months – a higher percentage than during the Great Depression.

The bigger the gap on someone’s resume, the more questions employers have.

‘(Employers) think: ‘Oh, well, there must be something really wrong with them because they haven’t gotten a job in 6 months, a year, 2 years.’ But that’s not necessarily the case,’ said Marjorie Gardner-Cruse with the Hollywood Worksource Center….

Here’s another problem: more than 1 million of the long-term unemployed have run out of unemployment benefits, leaving them without the money to get new training, buy new clothes, or even get to job interviews.

And, of course, the long-term unemployed not receiving benefits aren’t in a position to buy things, or drive demand that would drive new jobs. Krugman explains it better: ‘We are not, after all, suffering from supply-side problems. We don’t have high unemployment because workers lack the necessary skills, or are stuck in the wrong industries or the wrong locations; the hypothesis that we’re mainly […]