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Long term unemployment drops; still high

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.588 million, and the average stay on unemployment declined to 40.8 weeks.

By Guest blogger / January 8, 2012

This chart shows, in thousands, the annual number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more since 2000. Long-term unemployment has declined over the past two years, but still remains at historically high levels.

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Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed improved slightly in December while remaining epically distressed by historic standards.

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Writer, The PaperEconomy Blog

'SoldAtTheTop' is not a pessimist by nature but a true skeptic and realist who prefers solid and sustained evidence of fundamental economic recovery to 'Goldilocks,' 'Green Shoots,' 'Mustard Seeds,' and wholesale speculation.

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Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.588 million or 42.5% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed declined to 21.0 weeks and the average stay on unemployment declined to 40.8 weeks.

Looking at the charts below (click for super interactive versions) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here.To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on paper-money.blogspot.com.

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