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Long-term unemployment is particularly costly to those directly affected, of course. But in addition, because of its negative effects on workers' skills and attachment to the labor force, long-term unemployment may ultimately reduce the productive capacity of our economy.

For those unfortunate enough to experience it, long-term unemployment - now, as in the 1930s - is a tragedy. And, for society as a whole, there is the danger that the productive capacity of a significant portion of the labour force will be impaired.

Individuals out of work for an extended period can become less employable as they lose the specific skills acquired in their previous jobs and also lose the habits needed to hold down any job.

The longer people are unemployed, the less employable they become. Skills become rusty; managers look more suspiciously at someone who has been out of work for years than a candidate already employed.

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

I've heard the argument that unemployment benefits somehow act as a disincentive to the long-term unemployed when it comes to looking for work, but the opposite is true. Unemployment Insurance serves as a powerful incentive for people to keep searching for jobs, rather than drop out of the labor force altogether.

I don't think we need to extend unemployment any further without paying for it, and without making some modifications such as turning it into a loan at some point. It then encourages people to go back to work.

Prolonged unemployment is a tragedy of broken lives, broken families, foreclosed homes, and life without health insurance.

They keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job, because the job doesn't pay as much as the unemployment benefit does.

Being out of a job can erode people's confidence and their sense of possibility; and employers, often unfairly, tend to take long-term unemployment as a signal that something is wrong.