6.2 million of the 13.9 million unemployed in the U.S. right now have been unemployed for 6 months or longer. This means that 45% or more unemployed people have been unemployed for 6 months or more. This is a higher percentage than during the Great Depression. This is a quote from the CBS Evening news Sunday night, June 5th 2011.
So, I think it could now be said that unemployment in some ways is now worse than the Great Depression. However, it doesn't seem quite so bad because there are things like Unemployment compensation and food stamps and Welfare that didn't exist during the Great Depression. During the Depression many died or starved to death. This is less true now because of existing social programs that were instituted partly because of the horrors of the Great Depression during the 1930s.
Going into the Great Depression there was no Social Security, Welfare, or unemployment compensation or Food Stamps.
Also, during the Great Depression 25% of the people were unemployed for years and many starved and died because of it and now we only have 9.1% unemployment using the same types of screening. So, in this sense we are in a Technological reorganization caused directly by globalization. This unemployment rate will only stay this way if we don't innovate fast enough to keep up with the rest of the world.
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