On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Here's the breakdown of the officially unemployed in July:
>
> <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm>
>
> Total unemployed 100.0
> Less than 5 weeks 34.4
> 5 to 14 weeks 30.3
> 15 weeks and over 35.3
> 15 to 26 weeks 14.8
> 27 weeks and over 20.4
Here's my puzzle. Unemployment benefits last 26 weeks, right? So at first glance, from these stats, only 20.4% of the unemployed aren't getting them. Now obviously we deduct a few who slugged their boss, but still -- how do we get a figure of 58% not eligible? I would imagine most of those are people who didn't work long enough in the preceding year -- which means to me that they're not only unemployed now, they haven't really been employed in over a year.
That's what I meant by saying the majority of the unemployed were long term. I guess that's a misuse of a technical term. Is there a more specific one for people have had a job in the last 27 weeks, but haven't had enough work in the last year to qualify?
And I am right in saying the majority of the unemployed is made up of people like this plus the 20% who haven't had any job at all in the last six months?
Michael