This article analyzes what is behind the recent unprecedented rise in long-term unemployment and explains what this rise might imply for the economy going forward. In particular, the authors attribute the sharp increase in unemployment duration in 2009 to especially weak labor demand and, to a...

During recessions, it is common for the federal government to extend the standard unemployment insurance (UI) program. Many economic studies have shown that workers who receive UI extensions tend to take longer to find new employment, leading to a somewhat longer average duration of unemployment...

The current expansion has delivered the lowest unemployment rates in decades, yet nominal wage growth has remained relatively contained. This suggests to some a shift in the historical relationship between unemployment and wage growth. We look across the states for more timely evidence of a...

This article shows that even in recent years there is a relatively robust, negative cross-state correlation between appropriate measures of unemployment and wage growth.

This article explores new evidence from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) on the extent to which “house lock”--the reluctance of households to sell their homes in a declining house price environment--has contributed to the elevated unemployment rate...