Recession's impact extends to society

The recovery is upon us. Long live the recovery.

But not so fast. Recent articles are predicting that this recession that is officially, statistically in the past, might linger for years, even a decade. The New York Times is proclaiming the arrival of what it calls "the new poor." Long term unemployment — meaning more than six months — is at the highest level ever recorded. The United States has kept track of this statistic since 1948. In January, 6.3 million Americans were in the long-term unemployed category. For people who are unemployed for a long time, the job market is increasingly frustrating. And a long period of unemployment raises doubts in the minds of potential employers. "If this guy was any good, why hasn't he found a job before now?"

In a long and depressing article, the march Atlantic magazine peers into the economic future and sees gloom and doom. Writer Don Peck points out that there is more at stake here than a few economic statistics. Long-term unemployment and under-employment can transform society. Some cities may become hopelessly dysfunctional because of a lack of jobs. When people are out of work for a long time and their government benefits give out, they turn to whatever they can to survive, including robberies, larcenies and drug dealing. Lingering unemployment will affect the institution of marriage, Peck says. Men don't think about marriage, and women don't want to marry them, when they're unemployed. Unemployment is already affecting marriage and relationships. Men accustomed to being breadwinners are disproportionately affected by this recession. Their self-esteem and self-worth are damaged, and this affects their relationships with wives and girlfriends. In some areas, marriage might fade away among a working class frustrated and embittered by the lack of jobs.

The recovery from each recession over the past 20 years has been slow to rebuild the jobs that were lost, and job growth has slowed more with each recovery. We're almost certainly going to face unemployment in the high single digits for the 2010 and 2012 elections, and these numbers will have political repercussions. Jobs will be harder to find, especially for older males in declining industries, and those available will go only to the well-prepared and most fortunate. Unless new tax and tariff policies bring back some of the manufacturing jobs that have been lost to foreign competitors, there seems to be little hope of keeping the social fabric knit together.

The rending of the social fabric and the loss of communitarian identity and involvement, which has already begun, is even more frightening than a double-digit unemployment rate.