February Felt Familiar to Jobless Americans

“No news is good news!”

The idiom is often accompanied by a pat on the back, reminding people that bad news is the worst.

That said, no change can be plenty bad news– particularly when you have been unemployed for over six months and it seems like everyone you know anticipates a sour fiscal future.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics concluded that in February, six million Americans have been out of work for longer than six months.  Nearly fourteen million people are counted as unemployed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  This number and the unemployment rate (8.9 percent) changed little during the past month.  There was also little change in unemployment when different populations were counted.  The large number of unemployed teenagers, for instance, stayed approximately the same.  While adult women are not paid as much as men, they are less likely than men to be counted as unemployed.

Out of the whole jobless populace, 43.9 percent had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.  This group made up 43.8 percent of unemployed persons in January.  In February 2010, 41.0 percent of the unemployed had been jobless for 27 weeks or longer.