http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/employment/2009/07/12/0712longtermjobless.htmlBy Rich Miller
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Sunday, July 12, 2009
WASHINGTON — Rebecca Alvarez says she's "barely hanging on."
Without a job for seven months, the computer network administrator said she has stopped dining out, cut back on cable TV services and put off paying a photography class bill at her 14-year-old son's school in Monrovia, Calif.
Alvarez, 48, is among the more than 4 million Americans who have been looking for work for more than 26 weeks, representing 29 percent of the unemployed, the most since record-keeping started in 1948.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in industries such as autos and construction haven't been replaced, shrinking payrolls by 6.5 million since the recession began in 2007, Labor Department figures show.
The June jobless rate reached 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983.
"We are going to have a huge pool of unemployed, second only to the Great Depression," said Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics. "It will be a big public policy problem."
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