Long-Term Unemployment is Increasing,

and nothing is being done to reverse it.

People like me who are too young to retire yet can't find jobs are really screwed:

IF WE assume that the recession ended in August, and that the unemployment rate evolves post-recession as it did after the 1990 and 2001 recessions, we will still have unemployment at 8 percent in 2014. If weakness in the labor market lasts so long, we'll have people who see a serious erosion of their skills.

If you're 55, and you've lost your job and the labor market is weak--you can't find something comparable for five years--you've just taken a big chunk out of what was going toward your retirement that you will never get back.

For young workers, it's the same story, but just on the early end. Those early jobs set up your career ladders, your networks and your mentors. If we have a weak labor market for five years, we have a cohort of kids that just have less access to that stuff for five years. That's going to have a huge and lasting impact.