The current unemployment crisis appears to be primarily about the long term unemployed - those out of work for 6 months or more. This accounts for 45% of all the unemployed. What can be done about this, if anything?
One author proposes three options: Pay them, train them, or hire them.
Another worries that nothing can be done and we will have to live with high unemployment from now on:
Is there anything the government can do to bring unemployment
down? Or is it now too late? If we are indeed in the early months of a
double-dip recession, than I think it is too late: unemployment is more
likely to go up than it is down from here. And even if the economy’s
still managing to eke out modest growth, I don’t see much hope that the
unemployment rate will come down to a remotely acceptable level any time
soon. Realistically, America’s unemployed are here to stay. And we’re
only just beginning to understand how that’s going to affect the
political economy of the nation.
As mentioned below in various posts, an increasing concern - and possibly an area where government mediation can be applied - is if the long term unemployed are being discriminated against.
