Who Are The Long-Term Unemployed?

The long-term unemployed tend to be people who 1) are a little bit older, and 2) got laid off from their last job

It's been over four years since the recovery officially began, but there are still over four million people who are long-term unemployed. That's four million people who can't find work even after looking for six months or more -- four million people who can't even get companies to look at their resumes anymore.

But just who are the long-term unemployed? Well, that's the question Josh Mitchell of the Urban Institute looked at, and the answer is at once reassuring and terrifying. It turns out the long-term unemployed aren't much different from the other unemployed -- with two exceptions. They're just as educated (if not more so). And they're pretty much the same racially. But they're older. And they're unemployed, because they lost their last job -- and no, that's not as tautological as it sounds.