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81–227 2013

S. HRG. 113–38 

LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT: CONSEQUENCES 

AND SOLUTIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 24, 2013 

Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee 

( 
(II) 

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 

[Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress] 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

KEVIN BRADY, Texas, Chairman 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ERIK PAULSEN, Minnesota 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

JOHN DELANEY, Maryland 

SENATE 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota, Vice Chair 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

DAN COATS, Indiana 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

PAT TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT P. O’QUINN, Executive Director 

NILES GODES, Democratic Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS OF MEMBERS

Hon. Amy Klobuchar, Vice Chair, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota ..................... 1 

WITNESSES

Mr. Randy Johnson, Executive Director, Workforce Development, Inc., Rochester, MN .............................................................................................................. 5 

Hon. Keith Hall, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George 

Mason University and former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Arlington, Va ................................................................................................ 7 

Dr. Harry J. Holzer, Ph.D., Professor, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, 

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 9 

Dr. Kevin Hassett, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Director of Economic Policy 

Studies, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC ............................... 11 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Mr. Randy Johnson ........................................................... 32 

Prepared statement of Hon. Keith Hall ................................................................. 33 

Prepared statement of Dr. Harry J. Holzer ........................................................... 37 

Prepared statement of Dr. Kevin Hassett ............................................................. 41 

Prepared statement of Chairman Brady ............................................................... 52 

Chart titled ‘‘37 Consecutive Months of Private Sector Job Growth’’ ................. 54 

Chart titled ‘‘Solutions to Address Long-Term Unemployment’’ ......................... 55 

Chart titled ‘‘State Long-Term Unemployment Rates’’ ........................................ 56 

(1) 

LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT: 

CONSEQUENCES AND SOLUTIONS 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013 

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 

JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:31 a.m. in Room 106 

of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Honorable Amy 

Klobuchar, Vice Chairman, presiding. 

Representatives present: Cummings and Delaney. 

Senators present: Klobuchar and S. Murphy. 

Staff present: Gail Cohen, Sarah Elkins, Christina Forsberg, 

Connie Foster, Niles Godes, Colleen Healy, and Robert O’Quinn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, VICE 

CHAIR, A U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Good morning. I would like to thank everyone for being here today for this important conversation about 

long-term unemployment. We have several Members that will be 

arriving. 

I want to welcome, first of all, the many who are attending this 

hearing. Thank you for caring about this really important topic. I 

would especially like to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses 

who I will be introducing shortly. 

My hope is that we can spend the bulk of our time this morning 

focusing on solutions for helping more of America’s long-term unemployed get back to work. 

There are a lot of good ideas out there to address this issue, including efforts currently underway in my home State of Minnesota 

in areas like skills training and continuing education. We will be 

hearing a little bit more about those efforts today. 

The truth is that, for most workers, the job market is better 

today than it has been in years. And as this chart shows right 

here, private-sector employers have added more than 1.2 million 

jobs over the past six months alone in virtually every industry 

across the board. 

At 7.6 percent, the national unemployment rate is the lowest 

point in more than four years. In Minnesota, I would note that our 

unemployment rate is 5.4 percent. But there is no question that we 

still have more work to do, especially for America’s long-term unemployed. Maybe some in the audience associate long-term unemployed with regular unemployed, but in fact long-term unemployed 

means there are 4.6 million people who now fit this description, 
2 

meaning they have been out of a job and searching for work for 

more than 6 months. So they are a subset of the unemployed. 

We must do more to address the ongoing challenges of long-term 

unemployment, because this problem impacts more than workers 

who cannot find jobs. It also has consequences for our economy and 

requires a national strategy and a national solution. 

In preparation for today’s hearing, the Joint Economic Committee prepared an in-depth report examining the full scope of 

long-term unemployment, including state-by-state data. 

Among its findings, the report shows that long-term unemployment disproportionately affects workers at the times when they are 

most in need of stable employment. Younger workers who are just 

beginning their careers and may have student loans experience the 

highest rate of long-term unemployment. 

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for older workers is low; but 

those who do become unemployed are less likely to find new jobs 

quickly. Fewer than half of older unemployed workers find a new 

job within six months. 

For workers of all ages, the report finds that the longer a person 

is unemployed the less likely they are to find a job, as skills atrophy and professional networks dry up. 

In addition, as the map shows right here, the long-term unemployment rate varies by state and by region. I’m going to see if I 

have a copy of that so we can go through it. Thank you. 

As you can see by this chart right here, many of the states, especially in the upper Midwest, the state long-term unemployment 

rate is 0.6 in North Dakota where we know they are doing a lot 

with energy there; 0.8 percent in South Dakota; 1.8 percent in Minnesota; 1.3 percent in Iowa. This region has a lower long-term unemployment rate. 

We also have in the South, you see a higher long-term unemployment rate generally, with Florida at 4.1 percent; Georgia at 3.8 

percent. The East Coast is somewhat mixed, depending on what 

state you are in, and California and Nevada are up on the higher 

end at 4.4 and 4.8 percent. 

So you can see the difference in region in terms of long-term unemployment. 

We also know that recent Veterans are experiencing higher rates 

of unemployment than the general population. Congress has taken 

steps to help them translate their experience in serving our country 

into skills required by employers. 

Much more needs to be done to help our Nation’s Veterans reenter the civilian workforce. One of the sad ironies of the situation 

is the fact that there are actually job openings out there, and that 

is one of the things that I am really focused on today. Because especially in these states—and you can see the increasing number of 

them with somewhat lower unemployment rates—there is still a 

long-term unemployment rate that is too high with some people 

that just simply do not fit the jobs that are open. And that is a 

problem—not with all unemployed, but with an increasingly significant number. 

And that is because the overall unemployment rate has gone 

down, but there is still this long-term unemployed rate that concerns us. Because when we have openings, like I see all over our 
3 

State—the town of Benson, Minnesota, the last time I was there, 

60 job openings for welders, for people in tool and die, with people 

running robotics equipment; especially in some of the rural areas 

that have manufacturing, we actually need people with those skills, 

and they tend to be jobs where you can’t just go right out of high 

school and get the job. You have to actually have a year or two of 

training to take on using this technology. 

In a recent poll in my State of manufacturing companies, 60 percent of respondents said it was difficult to attract candidates with 

the skills or experience for the jobs they had open. And believe me, 

they want them. I cannot tell you how many managers of plants 

have told me: We just need someone that wants to learn these 

skills, or that has these skills. We will take them in, because we 

are starting to turn away work. 

In the exact same poll three years ago, only 40 percent of respondents reported having that problem. So you see in one state 

you go from 40 percent have openings that they cannot find the 

workers for to 60 percent. It is a good problem to have, in that we 

are seeing better employment rates, but it is a difficult problem to 

have because you want these jobs in America instead of having 

these employers start opening up plants in other countries. 

So we need the skilled workers, and you certainly have workers 

that want to have those skills. We just need to match the skills 

they are getting in high school—this idea that they can get community college degrees while they are in high school, and ramp that 

up, as well as a direct path that involves them going into some 

kind of post-secondary school where you actually get the skills 

where the jobs are. 

There is a gap between the skills employers want and the experience the workers have. That raises concerns about how much of 

our unemployment is cyclical, and how much is structural in nature. 

If it is largely cyclical, unemployment will continue to drop as 

the economy continues to grow. Structural unemployment, on the 

other hand, can be a more challenging problem to address and requires more targeted and more creative workforce training efforts. 

America’s industry is changing. Take sectors like manufacturing. 

Sophisticated robots have to be run and maintained and invented. 

The wrench and hammer that workers used before are now replaced with skills of engineering and skills of math. 

With smart investments in workforce training, we can help more 

workers adjust to the changing landscape. I also believe we can do 

more to elevate the role of hands-on real-world training that I mentioned before. 

One of the ways to do this is to encourage partnerships between 

schools and employers in their communities. There are places in 

Minnesota where I have seen it work incredibly well. They are kind 

of mid-sized cities—places like Rochester, Minnesota, where the 

Mayo Clinic is. They can go to a community college and say: you 

know, we’re going to need these many nurses with these skills. And 

the people in the community actually know, because they live 

there, that if they get those skills then they are going to be able 

to go and get a job. 
4 

And so you can have this synergy between the schools, the parents and the kids, or the workers, and the employers. Places like 

Thief River Falls, Minnesota, which most people may not have 

heard about except in Minnesota, the home of Arctic Cat which 

makes snowmobiles and ATVs, and also the home of DigiKey, a 

major employer of 2,500 people. They have a community college 

called Northland Community College. Those two major employers 

use it all the time for management skills, but kids that go there 

and their parents go to the high school, know if they get a degree 

there, or they go over to Moorehead or Fargo and get a degree, they 

are going to be able to come back and have a job. 

So it is easy to see how the things match up. It is much harder 

to see in the inner cities where you might not have an employer 

right next door, or in really small towns where you might not have 

that ability. So much more has to be done to make it easier for kids 

in high school to gain those skills, and in the community college. 

We also need to continue to work on policies that encourage job 

creation and strengthen our economy overall by promoting exports, 

by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation, by investing in 

education, research, and development, and by finding balanced bipartisan solutions to bringing our debt down. 

There is no silver bullet solution that will solve our long-term 

unemployment challenge, but I believe that there are a number of 

important steps we can take to address the problem effectively and 

proactively. That is why we are holding this hearing today. 

So I want to thank our witnesses for coming. I know Chairman 

Brady will be joining us later, and he will make a statement when 

he arrives. But for now I think it would be good—and I want to 

thank Senator Murphy for joining us—to get started with our testimony from our witnesses. 

I am going to introduce them all at once, and then have people 

give your testimony. 

First we have Mr. Randy Johnson. He is the Executive Director 

of Workforce Development, or WDI, based in Rochester, Minnesota, 

that I just mentioned. Mr. Johnson has worked for WDI since 1985, 

and has served as the Executive Director for the past 16 years. 

Under his leadership, WDI has won numerous awards, including 

being named the best rural workforce development system by the 

National Workforce Association. In 2012, the U.S. General Accountability Office recognized WDI’s prevocational health care academics 

as one of the best practices for Workforce Development in the Nation. 

Mr. Johnson has also led the efforts to have Workforce Centers 

co-located on the campuses of the local community colleges. 

Dr. Keith Hall—welcome back, Dr. Hall—Dr. Keith Hall is the 

former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He currently works as the Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center 

at George Mason University. He has served in a variety of Government positions, including Chief Economist for the White House 

Council of Economic Advisers, and Chief Economist for the U.S. 

Department of Commerce. 

Dr. Harry Holzer is also with us. He is the Professor of Public 

Policy at Georgetown University, and a founding director of the 

New Georgetown Center on Poverty and Equality in Public Policy. 
5 

He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, and a Senior Affiliate of the National Poverty Center at the University of 

Michigan, among his many other affiliations. 

Prior to coming to Georgetown, Professor Holzer served as the 

Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Labor. 

Finally, Dr. Kevin Hassett is the Director of Economic Policy 

Studies and a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

His research areas include the U.S economy, tax policy, and the 

stock market. Previously, Dr. Hassett was a senior economist at 

the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a Professor 

at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, and a 

policy consultant to the Treasury Department during the George 

H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations. He also served as a top 

economic advisor to George W. Bush and the John McCain Presidential campaigns. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here and we will start with my 

home town witness, Mr. Johnson. 

STATEMENT OF MR. RANDY JOHNSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT, INC., ROCHESTER, MN 

Mr. Johnson. Thank you Senator, Members of the Committee. 

I would like to start by thanking Chairman Brady and Senator 

Klobuchar for calling this hearing on the long-term unemployed. 

This population represents a challenge, but in many ways reflect 

our local economies and ways we cope as society. 

Thirty years ago I found myself unemployed, and my wife out of 

work while expecting our first child. That experience made an indelible impression on me, and I vowed to work toward building a 

better public system to help those in similar situations. 

In many respects, I believe that we have succeeded. Back then, 

our electronic job matching resources were decades away, and the 

Internet and social media systems that now allow people to network were inconceivable. 

We have One-Stop Job Centers with multiple partners present to 

provide coordinated services. Yet the economy continues to change 

rapidly and can be hard for the unemployed to keep up. 

In Southeast Minnesota, we serve an average of 1,500 dislocated 

workers a year, and regularly post a return-on-investment of $3 for 

every $1 invested by getting them back to work. We have found 

that the most critical element in getting people re-employed is 

early intervention, and to meet people one-on-one up front for a career planning session to start the process of rebuilding the relationships. 

A good example of this was witnessed recently in our area with 

the return of Minnesota’s National Guard Unit from Iraq and Kuwait. Every soldier who had reported a need for employment was 

given a career assessment while they were still in theater, and 

when they returned they all were connected to a career counselor 

from the One-Stop. 

We assembled 108 private sector employers, and 60 different 

partner agencies to be grounded in the challenges the Veterans 

face, and then provided sector-based job information at their 30- 

and 60-day re-integration events. As a result, Veterans’ unemploy-
6 

ment in our area is now lower than the civilian counterparts and 

one of the lowest in the Nation at just over 1 percent. 

Older workers provide a special challenge. Half of all of our unemployed folks that we are serving aged 55 and older have been 

unemployed for over a year. 

In addition, we have found that 25 percent of this group self-describes as having no real computer or social media skills. However, 

the convenient electronic tools that we now have to seek work can 

ensure even less human interaction during the day. 

So one way that we have had success is bringing people together 

for ‘‘brown bag’’ meetings, where people can get together and share 

job leads and bolster each other’s spirits. 

We also use this time to build resumes in group, while identifying the experiences they have had for which colleges might grant 

a ‘‘Credit for Prior Learning.’’ One man told us that if it weren’t 

for these gatherings he wouldn’t have any reason to get out of bed 

in the morning. 

Short-term training also shows good results with older workers. 

Just yesterday I learned of a 55-year-old that we are serving that 

was an unemployed engineer that had been out of work for over 

two years who found work at $6 over his past age after providing 

a 6-Sigma quality control training. But I would note that we need 

to make sure that the Workforce Investment Act recognizes this 

kind of effort as attaining a ‘‘credential,’’ which it currently does 

not. 

Good jobs with a solid future are growing, but they often require 

the job seeker to take a risk and change careers. To lessen this 

risk, we have had great success in providing month-long 

prevocational ‘‘Career Academies’’ for adults who are looking to 

move into Health Care, Advanced Manufacturing, or Alternative 

Energy. 

Our Academy graduates more than double their completion rate 

in subsequent education, and significantly reduce their turnover 

rate on the job. One woman shared that attending one of our 

Health Care Academies was ‘‘the best thing I have ever done for 

myself!’’ But note, despite our Academy successes that were chronicled, as you had mentioned, as a ‘‘Best Practice’’ by the General 

Accounting Office last year, the Workforce Investment Act does not 

recognize the expenditures as ‘‘credential training.’’ 

As the economy recovers, we find more employers eager to add 

full-time, good-paying jobs. But according to employers, the only 

good way to find out if the applicant has the skills they are looking 

for is to try them out in an internship, an apprenticeship, or some 

other kind of on-the-job training experience. 

We need to make sure that we have the right tools to make it 

easier for employers to participate in work-based training and take 

a chance on the long-term unemployed. So here are some examples 

of work-based learning that I think could help reduce long-term unemployment: 

Assist the States in developing an electronic ‘‘work-based learning clearinghouse’’ that would help employers connect with individuals across the region seeking an internship or another on-the-job 

training experience. 
7 

Incent employers to consider the long-term unemployed by providing ‘‘Adult Try-Out Employment’’ experiences in the private sector that would have the workforce serve provider act as the employer of record during the initial two months of work, and then 

cost-share the wages over the next two months. And there is a program that has been a pilot known as ‘‘Platform to Employment’’ 

that has accomplished that. 

Consider offering a ‘‘wage replacement’’ differential between the 

job seeker’s new starting wage and their past employment as they 

start out—especially in the case of long-term, older workers seeking employment with small employers. 

Thank you once again for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the public workforce system, and the long-term unemployed. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Randy Johnson appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 32.] 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Dr. Hall. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KEITH HALL, Ph.D., SENIOR 

RESEARCH FELLOW, MERCATUS CENTER AT GEORGE 

MASON UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER COMMISSIONER OF THE 

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, ARLINGTON, VA 

Dr. Hall. Good morning. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Good morning. 

Dr. Hall. Chairman Brady, Vice Chairwoman Klobuchar, and 

Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for the chance to discuss the current employment situation and the problem of long-term unemployment. I appreciate 

the opportunity to testify today. 

In my testimony, I want to make three points. 

First, the U.S. labor market is still not strong, and a full, robust 

recovery is not yet underway. 

Second, the problem of long-term jobless is actually worse than 

the long-term unemployment rate data indicates. 

And third, as bad as this problem is, its main cause is the extremely weak economic recovery and not a skills’ gap in the labor 

market. 

We are now a full three years from the labor market trough of 

the Great Recession. Over the past two years, we have had modest 

job growth. We have averaged about 175,000 new jobs in 2011; 

183,000 jobs per month in 2012; and have averaged 16,000 jobs per 

month so far this year. 

While this job growth is welcome, it is far short of what we need 

to achieve a full labor market recovery. Two significant problems 

have become evident through this lengthy period of slow job 

growth. 

First, there has been an unprecedented disengagement from the 

labor force with current participation at its lowest level in almost 

35 years. This means there are currently 102 million jobless people 

in the United States, but less than 12 million are actively looking 

for work. 

Second, there are over 4.6 million people that are long-term unemployed, and the long-term unemployment rate at 3 percent is 

well above historical levels. 
8 

One of the problems with this disengagement from the labor 

force is that the long-term unemployment rate underestimates the 

number of long-term jobless. To be counted as long-term unemployed, an individual needs to first have no work whatsoever for six 

months. Second, this individual must want to work and be nearly 

instantly available if offered work. And third, this individual must 

be actively looking for work. 

By ‘‘actively looking,’’ I mean that every month this individual 

must send out a resume, contact an employer directly, engage an 

employment agency or engage in some other sort of activity that by 

itself could result in employment. Checking for new job openings on 

the Internet, or in the newspaper alone does not qualify as ‘‘active 

job search.’’ 

This sets a high bar for someone to remain unemployed for long 

enough to be considered ‘‘long-term unemployed’’ as opposed to just 

long-term jobless. 

In 2011, the average unemployed person who eventually exited 

the labor force looked unsuccessfully for work for over 21 weeks. 

They would not have been classified as ‘‘long-term unemployed’’ 

and dropped out just six weeks short of being considered ‘‘long-term 

unemployed.’’ 

We have no measure of the number of long-term jobless that are 

not counted as unemployed. There are certainly millions of them. 

There is a predictable business cycle pattern to long-term unemployment. The number of long-term unemployed rises months into 

a recession, and continues to rise months after the end of a recession. It continues to rise simply because the process of a full labor 

market recovery requires that GDP not just grow but grow faster 

than this long-run trend. 

Since the end of this Recession, we have had the weakest economic recovery in at least 60 years. Although job growth has been 

slow, the labor market has in fact outperformed GDP growth. In 

2010, we had GDP growth of 2.4 percent. In 2011, growth slowed 

to 2.0 percent. In 2012, growth slowed to just 1.7 percent. 

Historically, this level of economic growth projects to just 134,000 

new jobs per month in 2011; and 120,000 in 2012, well below the 

actual 175,000 and 183,000 jobs per month, respectively, that we 

experienced. 

Household incomes and Government spending continued to be 

greatly affected by joblessness. Government spending on means’ 

tested programs is now about $1 trillion a year. A remarkable 17.2 

percent of total household income now comes from Government 

spending on social benefits to persons. 

This is spending on the broad range of Government programs designed to provide for assistance under circumstances of unemployment, poverty, sickness, and retirement. Social benefits to persons 

simply moves with the jobless rate, the share of the working age 

population without unemployment. 

Currently the jobless rate is a very high 41.5 percent, the same 

as it was in October of 2009 when the unemployment rate was 10 

percent. 

In closing, the recovery from the effects of the Great Recession 

on the labor market has been very slow. One of the results of this 

slow progress is the unprecedented growth in the number of long- 
9 

term unemployed. And, as bad as this official data appears, it 

underestimates the problem. There are almost certainly millions of 

people that are long-term jobless that are not considered ‘‘unemployed.’’ Although other factors may have contributed to this, the 

main cause is slow economic growth. 

The only real solution to this problem is a significant and sustained increase in economic growth. Unfortunately, just as slow as 

economic growth has created long-term joblessness, long-term joblessness is helping to hold back economic growth and has a significant impact on Government spending. 

Thank you for inviting me today. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Keith Hall appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 33.] 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Thank you, very much. 

Dr. Holzer. 

STATEMENT OF DR. HARRY J. HOLZER, Ph.D., PROFESSOR, 

GEORGETOWN PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. Holzer. Thank you, and good morning, Senator Klobuchar 

and Senator Murphy. 

I would like to make several points this morning about structural 

and long-term unemployment and what it means for different 

groups of American workers. 

Point number one, structural unemployment in the United States 

has probably risen about one percentage point during the labor 

market downturn and slow recovery since 2007, though it is unclear how much of this one percentage point increase will actually 

last over time. 

Most of the increase in unemployment since 2007 does reflect insufficient employer demand for workers. But the job vacancy rate 

at 2.8 percent nationally is somewhat higher than we might expect 

with so much unemployment. 

Employers in some sectors like health care and advanced manufacturing do seem to have genuine difficulty filling jobs requiring 

specific skills while other employers in other sectors seem to be 

moving more slowly to fill jobs because demand for their products 

remains very limited and very uncertain. 

Point number two, long-term unemployment should have negative effects on future employment prospects, at least for some 

groups. The long-term unemployed now are being rehired more 

slowly than those with short unemployment spells. How well they 

will fare when aggregate job creation picks up remains unclear, but 

some subgroups among that group, like older workers, will probably have more difficulty than others finding new jobs. 

Point number three, the high levels of unemployment during the 

last five years will likely affect older and younger workers quite 

differently as the recovery continues, though both might be scarred 

to some extent—and Senator Klobuchar actually made this point 

earlier. Long-term unemployment has increased the most among 

older workers aged 55 and above—a definition which I hate because then I fall in that category—even though the unemployment 

rates remain quite low and their work activity has actually risen 

in the past five years. 
10 

Older workers lose and leave their jobs less frequently than other 

workers, but they then adapt less quickly to changing labor market 

needs—partly because employers are reluctant to hire them, and 

reluctant to invest in training them. 

In contrast, younger workers are much more frequently unemployed for more short-term employment spells. They will gain jobs 

more quickly than older workers, but at lower wages than usual. 

And their earning levels will be relatively low for many years as 

a result. And other groups, less educated workers, African American workers, and the children of the dislocated will be scarred in 

their own ways, as well. 

Point number four, besides their effects in the past five years, 

imbalances between the skills sought by employers and those held 

by workers have also led to growing earnings inequality over time, 

and to lower levels of good job creation in the United States. 

While educational attainment among Americans has been slowly 

increasing, too many students leave high school with very few of 

the general or specific skills that employers seek. Also, many start 

college—either at two-year or a four-year institution—but fail to 

complete any program or gain any credential, especially that employers recognize and value. 

So the gaps between those who have the skills that employers 

seek and those who do not have widened over time, and employers 

if they perceive difficulty in filling good-paying jobs with highly 

skilled workers will likely create fewer such jobs in the United 

States, relying instead on technological advances or on offshoring 

production activity to meet those needs. 

So again, the effects of long-term and structural unemployment 

might fall well beyond what we see in the unemployment rates. 

Point number five, a wide range of policy responses should be 

tried in order to address the problems of skill imbalances and to 

improve employment and earnings potential for American workers. 

The policies to improve these outcomes of workers hurt by structural imbalances should include the following: 

Number one, strengthen re-employment services to help them 

find jobs appropriate to their skill level more quickly. 

Category number two: Education and training programs to create 

worker skills that better match the jobs that are in fact available. 

Point number three: Wage insurance, very similar to Mr. Johnson’s replacement wage subsidies, for displaced workers whose 

earnings are permanently lower because of the loss of a good job. 

And category number four: Carefully targeted job creation strategies while unemployment remains high. 

The exactly appropriate package of benefits and services may 

well differ across these groups. Younger workers are more easily 

trainable for good jobs that require some technical skill, especially 

at community colleges, and especially when the colleges have links 

to workforce systems and to employers. 

They might also benefit more from a variety of earn and learn 

strategies such as apprenticeships, and paid internships related to 

their areas of study. 

In contrast, older workers when displaced might benefit the most 

from wage insurance where the Government provides a subsidy to 
11 

partly offset the permanent loss of earnings that has occurred 

when the displaced workers take lower-wage jobs. 

And of course job creation strategies in the near-term would also 

help. Public spending on building infrastructure, tax credits or subsidies for private-sector employment growth, and public service jobs 

could all play some kind of a positive role in reducing unemployment over the next several years in different ways for these different groups. 

Thank you, very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Harry J. Holzer appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 37.] 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Dr. Holzer. Dr. 

Hassett. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KEVIN HASSETT, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC POLICY STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you, Vice Chair Klobuchar and Senator 

Murphy. It is an honor to be here today. 

I think the headline of my testimony is that there really is a national emergency right now involving long-term unemployment. 

And to highlight the importance of this challenge for all of us, I go 

into some of the research that has been done on the impact of longterm unemployment on wellbeing. 

A report by Johnson & Feng at the Urban Institute shows that 

of workers who were out of work for six months between 2008 and 

2011, half experienced declines in per capita family income of 40 

percent or more. 

The financial hardships are felt especially by African Americans 

and Hispanics, along with workers who did not have more than a 

high school education, and unmarried workers who could not rely 

on a spouse’s income. 

In addition, once workers who were previously unemployed find 

jobs, their earnings are persistently lower than before their unemployment spell. Unemployed workers have also been shown to have 

an increased risk of death, and potentially shortened life expectancy, along with a heightened risk of suicide that increases with 

the length of unemployment. 

Perhaps even unexpectedly there seems to be a link between 

long-term unemployment and mortality through cancer, especially 

lung cancer. There is also a really troubling literature on the impact of long-term unemployment on kids and on marriages. You are 

more likely to get divorced, and you see a very serious impact in 

academic performance of kids. And there is even one study that 

surveyed adults whose parents had a serious unemployment spell 

when they were kids and found a permanent negative impact on 

the wages of grown-ups who had to experience that in their family 

when they were growing up. 

Now while some of these costs of unemployment are easy to pinpoint, the causes of the recent increase in the number of long-term 

unemployed are hard to disentangle. Understanding the causes is 

necessary, however, if we want to choose policies that we think will 

be effective in addressing this national emergency. 
12 

Now a few theories have been put forth for the persistence of the 

large amount of long-term unemployment in the United States, and 

these include skills mismatch; that there is policy uncertainty that 

is slowing hiring; and that there is a scarring of the long-term unemployed. 

I go in my testimony into the detailed evidence on these different 

explanations. And although it is plausible that all three causes are 

influencing the current high rate of long-term unemployment, the 

best evidence seems to indicate that the largest factor is some form 

of scarring. In other words, it is something that does not seem to 

be particularly responsive to our policy actions. 

Tepid growth has certainly kept unemployment high, and uncertainty certainly has contributed some to that, and the skills gap 

might explain a little bit of why it is that there are a lot of vacancies right now but we still have high unemployment, but I think 

the permanent negative effect on the employability of a worker 

once they are out of the workforce for awhile is the crucial challenge for us. 

Now public policy discussions—I am listing the challenges, and 

then I will go quickly into solutions—public policy discussions in 

this area tend to focus on the individuals, as in fact they should 

because the individuals are the direct targets of this terrible problem, but there is also a large difference in unemployment between 

geographic regions that we also have to put on the table. 

It may be necessary to seek more concentrated policies that do 

not target just people but also geographic areas. For example, the 

unemployment rate in the Detroit Metropolitan Area in February 

of this year was 10.2 percent, compared to a rate of 5.5 for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Outside of the largest metro regions, there’s 

sometimes great and persistent disparities. 

The unemployment rate in Yuma, Arizona, in February was 25.6 

percent; and it has been near that high for a very long time. But 

it was only 6.7 percent in Tucson. 

Now the impact of long-term unemployment on the lives of unemployed Americans and their families is about as negative as anything that economists study. It is clear that something terrible happens to individuals as they stay unemployed, but the negative effect does not seem responsive to the training programs that we 

have in place now, and other things that I mention in my written 

testimony. 

Now I would say that we must act, and that we must recognize 

in this action that we need to know more, and that we need to be 

creative in thinking about what the appropriate solution to this terrible emergency is. 

And so therefore my recommendation in my testimony is that we 

pursue a strategy in a difficult policy space that has been pursued 

by Congress before, and consider engaging in very well-thought-out 

experiments that try many different ideas in different parts of the 

country, and do so in a kind of a controlled laboratory setting 

where there are random assignments so that we can evaluate 

whether the experiments work, and try out bipartisan Democratic 

and Republican ideas to see what works, and then test them with 

the data. 
13 

I sketched some ideas that might be the kind of things that we 

would experiment with, including direct hiring, policies such as 

better designed Enterprise Zones that are directed at geographic 

mismatches; training programs that are more private. There have 

been a lot of positive ‘‘European experiences—for example, in Germany with—engaging’’ private firms more in the training process. 

Work subsidies that encourage employers to hire folks that have 

been long-term unemployed. And expanded work-share programs 

like the law that we just passed. 

I think that, absent new knowledge, the fact is that we are not 

going to address this national emergency with policies that we are 

sure or are confident will succeed, and I think we all should agree 

that that is an unacceptable position. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kevin Hassett appears in the 

Submissions for the Record on page 41.] 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. All right. Well thank you very much for 

your testimony. 

Dr. Hassett, I actually liked some of the ideas you brought up 

there and I thank you for the concrete ideas. And this scarring that 

maybe some of which Mr. Johnson is dealing with on the front line, 

you believe some of it is just they are out of work so long, and so 

they get to a point where it is hard to get back into a place where 

they are going to get hired either because of the employer’s reaction to them, or their confidence, or their ability to do the job. 

I think that is very possibly a piece of this. I also do know that, 

just from talking to so many employers in my State that some of 

the workers maybe got a degree in anthropology—I pick that out 

because my daughter is taking that class right now in high 

school—or something else that just does not translate into what 

have become really advanced skills in the workplace in terms of 

understanding how to run certain computers, and do certain webbased technology; and that it just takes them a year or two. They 

literally have to start over in their training to get those skills for 

what the employers need. 

What do you think of that proposition, for a piece of it? 

Dr. Hassett. Yes, I think that that’s certainly people making bad 

choices when they are pursuing higher education is certainly part 

of the problem. 

I think that the scarring question, that there are two sides to it 

that Dr. Holzer and I were discussing, a recent study that found 

that if you have been unemployed for say more than a year, that 

employers just will not interview you, even without talking to you, 

just looking at your CV, just adding that in an experiment to someone’s CV makes the employer unattracted to you. 

Now it could be that that is because there are so many candidates that are better right now because there is so much unemployment. But the other thing is that on the individual side that 

folks—you know, I have a friend who does pastoral care, and I was 

talking about it once, and he said that someone losing their job is 

actually often harder on a family than a death in the family. Because the death, it sort of gradually goes away, you gradually recover. But if somebody does not have a job, and a year later they 

do not have a job, then every morning they wake up and they are 
14 

reminded of their failure, and so you start to see lives fall apart. 

And that is why it affects kids when they are grown up even. It 

has a permanent effect. 

And so I think that there is a lot of stuff that we have to address. 

But getting over the scarring, which is why, for example, one of the 

things that I think we really need to consider significantly is giving 

them jobs, is creating some kind of either Government jobs programs, or vouchers to get people into private firms. Because getting 

them reconnected—if you are over 60 and you have been unemployed for a couple of years, the odds of getting a job are getting 

pretty darn close to zero. And that is a national emergency. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Okay. And the idea here, your idea of 

experimenting in different areas with different job programs, you 

say that was tried before. Was it controversial because some things 

worked and some did not? 

Dr. Hassett. Well, I don’t know if it is controversial, but—— 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Okay. 

Dr. Hassett [continuing]. It should not be. I mean, you could 

imagine something like, so, for example, if we were going to see 

does it help with the scarring problem if we just give someone a 

job, or have a private firm give someone a job, well what you could 

do is you could have 50,000 people sign up for the program, randomly assign people to receive maybe a private job, a Government 

job, or, you know, not be helped, sadly. And then see if it has an 

impact, a different impact on the three types of people. That kind 

of experiment has been funded by the Federal Government. In the 

1970s they had experiments of the negative income tax. 

And so there is precedent for this. But I think that when there 

is something that is an emergency and we know we do not understand it, but we can think of things that we can do to learn what 

we need to to have smart policies, then we should be willing to 

learn—— 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Right. 

Dr. Hassett [continuing]. And learn more and posture less. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Right. I agree. And would you agree 

with this idea in the high school level of trying—you brought up 

Germany. They do a lot more of this. Trying to have these kids 

graduate with a skill, and working with maybe one- or two-year degree programs while they’re there? 

Dr. Hassett. Yes. There are different—there are more people in 

training programs in high school in Germany. They separate the 

kids earlier. And then folks who are really drawn to more physical 

activities, or technical activities like auto repair and things like 

that can get that training in high school. 

Right now, we are kind of putting everyone on a track that targets them for an academic career. And it could be that for some 

people that is not the right choice. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. And I also think, just talking to superintendents in my areas, and employers, and parents, it’s really 

hard for them to see this manufacturing as a career. I just did a 

Washington Post Panel yesterday on this, and it is such an issue 

because they do not see this. They see this as it is possibly a career 

that is going to go away, when in fact it is paying more than a lot 
15 

of other jobs. And we have to just put some light on the change, 

that it is not your grandpa’s factory floor anymore. 

Dr. Holzer, what do you think of some of the ideas that Dr. 

Hassett has put out here with trying some experiments with what 

works, and this scarring issue? 

Dr. Holzer. I am sympathetic with most of those ideas. I think 

we have to go in with the right expectations. 

I mean, first of all I think we should do some of this at some 

scale, given the magnitude of the emergency. If you do it at some 

scale, it is going to cost some real resources. I think we should 

spend those resources. I know resources in the federal budget right 

now are very, very tight. There are other sensible ways to deal 

with the resource issues, but I think we should be willing to spend 

them. 

We would be in largely uncharted waters. And so we do not know 

a lot right now. And I think our expectations should not be too 

high. So let me give one example. 

It is sensible to try to create subsidized employment in the private sector for a lot of these long-term unemployed. For instance, 

giving them public service jobs will not do much to lower the stigma in the eyes of employers. Private-sector employment would 

probably do more. 

But on the other hand, the take-up by employers might be limited. Interest might end as soon as the subsidy ends on the employer’s part. That job might substitute for another job that the employer might otherwise create. It might not be net new employment. 

So I think we have to anticipate some of those difficulties, and 

some of those things will come out when we do these evaluations. 

Having said all that, I think we should still do it. And I think 

we should still commit the resources, because the human cost of 

not doing it is so enormous right now, and getting worse all the 

time, that we should take a real whack at this with some real resources and see what we learn, and then invest more in the more 

effective treatments. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. I think we can also look at other countries. We are competing in this global economy now, and if we have 

job openings for skilled jobs, and then we have people that do not 

have jobs, we are not going to be able to achieve what we want for 

our economy in the global economy. 

Mr. Johnson, and then I will turn it over to my colleagues here, 

could you just comment on what you have seen on the front line 

with these workers in terms of the scarring issue that Dr. Hassett 

brought up? And any ideas that you would lend to this in a practical way of how to deal with this with long-term unemployed? 

Mr. Johnson. Yes. The process of losing one’s what we call 

‘‘work-fit’’ sets in almost immediately. I think, modestly, we have 

gone through a process in the 1990s and the early part of the last 

decade where it seemed to be much easier to find a job that paid 

decent wages by just walking across the street. And I think people 

got the notion that that is normal. 

That is not normal. Historically, that isn’t. And so the very moment that you find yourself unemployed with a family trying to fig-
16 

ure out how to recover sets a panic in. And how people deal with 

that is individual. 

This is—if I can make one point in this whole deal, it is that we 

can put programs and policies in place to try to meet the need, and 

I definitely think we should, but we have to make sure we understand this is a people-to-people business. You know, trying to affect 

people’s emotions as they move forward is critical. 

I remember hearing a statistic that made me sit up straight 30 

years ago when I was unemployed for all of 3 months, but the statistic then said that if you are unemployed over 6 months you are 

6 times more likely to never find another job the rest of your life. 

That sobers you up in a hurry saying, wow, something has to 

happen soon here. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Okay. We have that 39 percent of the 

unemployed have been, in our country today coming out of this report, have been out of work for 6 months; 27 percent have been out 

of work for at least a year. So you can see the percentage of the 

unemployed is nothing to be trifled with. It is a pretty big percentage. 

Okay, Senator Murphy. 

Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Senator Klobuchar. 

Thank you for convening this hearing, and thank you to the panel. 

You are all wonderful to be here with us. 

Mr. Johnson, you mentioned a program that we are really proud 

of in Connecticut, and that is Platform To Employment, P2E, it’s 

been called. It was featured in a pretty long and robust segment 

on 60 Minutes about a year or six months ago, and it is now being 

expanded and modeled across the country. 

The concept is twofold. One, that these are different workers and 

they need a level of support service around them that is just distinct from what shorter term unemployed need, and that is expensive. 

But second, that—and we talked about this across the panel— 

that you’ve got to do something different with employers; that you 

actually have to go out and find employers who are willing to take 

workers on a temporary basis, a trial basis, and allow the workers 

to prove that they can overcome the stigma that has been associated with the long-term unemployed. 

And so I just sort of wanted to—you mentioned in your testimony, and I wanted to sort of ask you to sort of expand upon that 

model, which is a program both which recognizes the social necessity of dealing with the emotional issues that come with being unemployed for a long period of time, but specifically the project that 

they have underway in Connecticut and across the country to do 

trial periods of employment, subsidized by the program, with the 

hopes that at the end of that trial period the stigma is removed 

and the employment becomes permanent. 

Mr. Johnson. In our area, a year ago we did an extensive survey to try to drill into what everyone was talking about as the 

skills gap, and contacted quite a number of employers representing 

actually about 25 percent of all the jobs in our area. 

We really wanted to drill into the specific technical skills, and 

which credential are you looking for, et cetera. And actually what 

we got back, despite our best efforts, was something that we have 
17 

learned 20 some years ago. It still came back to the critical set of 

skills which often has been called ‘‘soft skills.’’ And it really boiled 

down to how they fit within that organization and their willingness 

to continue to learn, and interact, and communicate. 

And so, yes, there are specific skills. They were high on STEM 

skills. They needed those kinds of things as background. But how 

do I judge this person’s effectiveness on my job? The only way they 

see that is to try them out firsthand, to witness their work and 

their relationships. 

We have a number of tools currently to work with that: on-thejob training contracts where that employer becomes the employer 

of record; and then we cost-share some of the wages. We have been 

able to get some employers to be enticed with that. But others, 

they still feel that there is a buyer’s market in terms of number 

of people that are applying for these jobs. And so they really just 

want to sort out before they make that commitment. 

And we felt that—I know I connected to Tom Long, who was one 

of the proponents and original developers of Platform To Employment. This would be a better relationship where we could start out 

with that person on the provider’s payroll for the first two months. 

If that is working, we’ve got the right person. Now let’s build the 

skills and cost-share that for the next several months. 

And the reports I have gotten is that that is an excellent way to 

build the relationship. 

Senator Murphy. Dr. Hall, you are the dissenting voice on this 

panel in terms of the skills gap. It is driven for a lot of us by anecdotal feedback from employers, but there is certainly data there as 

well. 

Just expand a little bit, if you could, on why you essentially come 

to this panel with the conclusion that this is really a much bigger 

issue about economic growth and not an issue about the skills gap? 

Dr. Hall. Yes. In my view, the part that dominates the number 

of long-term unemployed is simply there just hasn’t been enough 

economic growth, enough job growth. It does not mean that there 

won’t be skills gaps that will become apparent once the economy 

gets stronger, once the labor market starts to grow quicker, but the 

sort of thing that I worry about—and it is somewhat shaded by my 

experience I guess at the Bureau of Labor Statistics—if you are 

going to spend money training people, you need to be sure that 

there are actually jobs there. 

I am reminded of the old joke about the atheist at his funeral: 

all dressed up and no place to go. 

If you are going to train people, you need to be realistic about 

the jobs. When I was there, there was a green jobs training program. They had a half a billion dollars to spend on green job training. It hit my radar screen because that is about the entire budget 

of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The Inspector General put out a report after they had spent 

about $170 million of that saying, hey, look, people aren’t getting 

jobs. You should look to see if there really is a need for green skills, 

and maybe decide not to spend the rest of this money if the need 

is not there. 

The BLS spent the rest of the money, and they placed about 

30,000 people into jobs. So that is one of my big concerns right 
18 

now, that there just isn’t a lot of job growth. You need to be sure 

that there are going to be jobs out there for people to get, and you 

train people for the right—— 

Senator Murphy. But I guess my—I mean, if I could ask just 

one additional question, it is one thing to address the wrong skills 

gap, right, and maybe that is the wrong skills gap. It is another 

thing to suggest that there is not a skills gap. 

So I guess what I am asking is: What is the data that drives your 

conclusion that this is not a matter of a disconnect between skills 

and job openings? 

Dr. Hall. Sure. Well when I look at the data on the number of 

long-term unemployed, it is really huge. And in fact it is actually 

worse than it appears. You know, there are about 4.6 million longterm unemployed. There are probably millions more who are longterm jobless, people who are not actively looking because they have 

been unemployed for a long time. 

So this is a really big problem. But if you look at something just 

basic: Have we had enough economic growth to support enough job 

growth to really get us into recovery? And the answer is: No. 

At this current rate of job creation, to get back to the same employment ratio that we had before the Recession, it is going to be 

a decade. That is a really long time, and that is really not strong 

enough job growth to start to get people back to work. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Dr. Holzer. 

Dr. Holzer. If I could just comment on this, I don’t think there 

is a disagreement among us on this issue. Because I also said in 

my testimony, if I had to pick one factor that is the strongest factor, it is joblessness and the lack of GDP growth to support job creation. 

I do think, having said that, there’s some significant piece of the 

unemployment, maybe a percentage point in the aggregate, that 

does reflect the skill imbalance. And in fact I think the most effective training program, again as Senator Klobuchar said at the outset, the ones where you are actively working hand in hand with 

employers to meet needs, and where they indicate that the training 

is for specific jobs, those are not likely to suffer from the problem 

Dr. Hall is raising. 

So I don’t think those are inconsistent views. And I also think 

sort of the skills mismatch has so many other effects on inequality, 

on wage growth, and even on the willingness of employers to create 

jobs in America. If you take that famous Siemens plant that was 

built in North Carolina that President Obama has talked about in 

his State of the Union, Siemens would not build the plant until 

they went to North Carolina and made agreements with the UNC 

System and the community colleges to create a stream of welltrained engineers and technicians to fill those jobs. So in other 

words, the job creation may not happen if the skills won’t be there 

to meet them. But it is a multi-pronged problem, I think we all 

agree on that. 

Senator Murphy. Thank you, Senator. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. I appreciate that, because I don’t think 

anyone has said it is not both things. It is both things. But I like, 

Dr. Holzer, your last point about sometimes it is so connected that 

the employers do not want to add jobs, or maybe they will go to 
19 

another place, like we are having right now happening with the immigration issue with Canada because it makes it easier for them 

to get in some technology workers than it is in America. 

So some of our high-tech companies are actually opening up 

there simply because at this moment they do not have the people 

they can find. And I thought Dr. Hassett’s point about the geographic differences was very true. Because in North Dakota right 

now—I know, it’s next door—because of energy, it is different than 

the tech issue, we cannot get a truck driver in the Coca-Cola plant 

in St. Cloud because so many of them are going over to North Dakota because of the oil. And that is a good problem to have, for 

workers, and that is one of the reasons we have an unemployment 

rate that is so low in these states in the Upper Midwest. 

But there are targeted areas where you have very high unemployment, and then there are ones where it just becomes much 

more down to the raw levels of the skills and having the workers 

in the right place. And I have just found that frustrating because 

I know there are people out there that want to work, who ever do 

not have the skills, or maybe are in the wrong place for where the 

jobs are. But it is clearly very state by state, which is one of the 

reasons that with this report we looked at it state by state. And 

it was no surprise what the numbers showed. 

So, very good. Representative Delaney, always welcome to our 

Committee. 

Representative Delaney. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar, for 

welcoming. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. And maybe you happen to know a little 

bit about creating jobs, yourself. 

Representative Delaney. Thank you for welcoming me to the 

Committee, and thank you for organizing this terrific panel. 

I have a couple of questions. But my first ties into some of the 

things Dr. Hall just said. And it is a little bit around how we think 

about the unemployment situation from a larger macro analytical 

framework. 

Because it seems to me the unemployment challenges that we 

face as a country right now have probably been with us for some 

time. They were somewhat masked by the credit bubble, which created a fair amount of jobs and kept the headline unemployment 

number below what it would have organically been if we would 

have seen a more natural financial market. 

And the cause of this seems to me to be effectively—again speaking very macro—globalization and technology, two very disruptive 

forces that are enormously positive but have been very disruptive 

on a generation of Americans. It happened too fast. We weren’t 

quite prepared for it. And as a result, there has just been this enormous disruption, as I say, in a lot of people’s jobs. 

And so how much do you think this employment challenge really 

needs to be thought about as three distinct challenges? The first 

being the trends that have caused the disruption are continuing 

and accelerating. And there are very young Americans right now 

that we have to make sure are prepared for the world the way it 

is, and that ultimately the country has to become more competitive 

in terms of creating jobs that have a decent standard of living. And 

that is a discrete project and set of policy tasks that involve delay-
20 

ing gratification. Because a lot of the things we do there will not 

have an immediate impact on unemployment, but we have to do 

them so that this does not become a persistent problem in our society. 

And then the second issue being the people who have been disrupted and lost their jobs, but with good policies we could successfully reintegrate them into the workforce. In other words, through 

training and things like that. As a second set of problems. 

And then the third, which Dr. Hassett touched on, and that Dr. 

Holzer I think when I came in at least, was this segment of our 

population that at this point is very, very difficult to really successfully integrate them into the workforce without significant subsidy 

and help, which for all the reasons that were identified I think we 

should be doing. 

So how much of this problem really is a problem that has three 

dimensions to it, and they require different fixes? And that we are 

not really talking about it in those terms? That is something that 

I wrestle with when I think about unemployment, because there 

are so many different problems and they have very different solutions, and they affect different segments of the population. 

So if you wouldn’t mind, Dr. Hall, or any of the other panelists? 

Dr. Holzer. I like your analysis. I tend to agree with it. I think 

there is a piece of this problem that is purely cyclical. And when 

you have a recession created by the bursting of a financial bubble, 

the recoveries are always slow. A lot of deleveraging has to occur 

in the private sector, and they are not going to pick up demand. 

So part of it really is a cyclical problem with a very slow recovery. And it needs more stimulus and more job creation. 

But I tend to agree with your other macro comment. If you look 

at the entire business cycle from 2000 to 2007, which was a peak— 

to trough to peak cycle—job creation was fairly tepid through the 

whole thing, even per-unit of GDP growth. Very different than the 

late 1990s when GDP growth was really translating into jobs. 

I am almost certain it is because of technology and globalization. 

I don’t think we fully understand how to deal with that problem, 

but my guess is that that is also slowing down the recovery. 

And then the third piece of the prong you said is true. We have 

disadvantaged populations that bring very poor skills and work experience. They require one set of solutions. The dislocated, older 

workers require a different set. 

Things in the high school that could be done differently. Things 

in community colleges. Building an effective education and workforce system for all these different groups. But I think you’re right. 

There are many different pieces that fit into this puzzle and we 

will probably have to look at all of them at some level. 

Representative Delaney. Dr. Hassett. 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you, Mr. Delaney. 

I think that your organization of the problem is a very competent 

one. It is really well done; that that is exactly the way to think 

about it. 

The one thing I would add is that I think part of the biggest nut 

to crack is that your groups two and three are not labeled. And so 

that from the point of view of the employer, you know, say there 

a lot of people in the pool of the long-term unemployed that would 
21 

be great employees, but there are some people that have gone 

through the terrible changes that we have discussed that have 

made them actually bad employees. If you were to hire them, they 

would be very disruptive for your business. 

When you look from outside, you can’t tell which is which. And 

so part of our problem is to help people who are incorrectly being 

signalled and stained by this, to identify themselves as reliable, 

great employees. And then to provide help for the people that really, really need it. That is the way I like to think about it. 

But I think the fact that we don’t have separate groups two and 

three, in some part that’s the biggest part of the problem; that 

there are people that really can be productive members right away, 

but they are in a group of people that employers are kind of pessimistic about. 

Representative Delaney. Dr. Hall. 

Dr. Hall. Yes. A lot of my point I think is that the private sector 

has got so much more potential, more ability to create jobs and 

help people than the Government ever can. 

Representative Delaney. Um-hmm. 

Dr. Hall. And to some degree, this is such a big problem you are 

going to need the private sector to turn around. You are going to 

need to see the economy turn around. And that is going to do more 

to encourage job growth than anything else. 

It doesn’t mean that we are not going to have issues, as you talk 

about, with people having a skills imbalance. I think we almost 

certainly are. But in terms of what is going to be most important, 

encouraging growth and getting some strong growth going I think 

is by far the most important thing. 

Representative Delaney. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. Johnson. Yes. I would echo what is being said here. There 

are changes that have happened in the job market that are responsible—the global economy is responsible for, like Just-In-Time Inventory, where people do not just keep making things even though 

it is down. And so the whole entire process that an employer has 

become just-in-time, including I need people just in time. 

And so they need to walk in the door with the skills, where that 

wasn’t really always the case in the past. But also the process for 

looking for work has changed. And so if you are a person who has 

not looked for work for quite some time, and you do the traditional 

I put my application out at XYZ company and I sit back and wait 

for the phone to ring, you are going to find out that does not ring 

very often. 

And if you listen to the word on the street, you will find that 

many of the jobs we are growing certainly are low-wage, part-time 

in the service sector. And you get that inundated, and you give up 

hope, saying that is what is really going on. That is not the whole 

picture. There are good jobs that they also need to be prepared for. 

But it is easy to get disillusioned. 

Representative Delaney. So—if I could? 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Go ahead. 

Representative Delaney. So if we stay with this notion of 

somewhat disaggregating these problems, and if we are to assume 

for a second something that is a little hard to assume but let’s assume it for a second that we would do the things we need to do 
22 

to reverse some of the structural employment problems. So in other 

words let’s assume we have immigration reform. Let’s assume we 

had a national energy policy. Let’s assume we had tax reform, a 

grand bargain budget deal, we improved educational outcomes, and 

we invested in our infrastructure. Let’s assume we did all the 

things that we talk about—— 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. That’s what you got elected to do. 

Representative Delaney. Exactly. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Okay. 

Representative Delaney. Let’s assume we do those things. And 

that will help, in my judgment, long term the competitiveness of 

the country and create a lot of jobs to allow the private sector to 

create jobs—because there is no question that the private sector 

creates the jobs; the Government puts in place policies to level the 

playing field, and create a competitive environment so that our 

country can create these jobs—but there will still be people left behind in that, it seems to me, because those things, while central 

to what we have to do as a country to reverse these employment 

trends over the long term, and are so worthy of our attention and 

our efforts, will in fact take some time to produce the results. Because this is a very big economy, and it takes a long time to turn 

the ship, to make our economy more competitive in sectors that we 

are not that competitive in is not a three- or a six- or a nine-month 

proposition. We have to change the timeframe that we analyze success on those things. 

So the question is: For the people who are inevitably left behind 

by this, whom things happen too quickly and all the things we are 

doing to prepare ourselves in the future, that they are just not, for 

a variety of reasons, socioeconomic reasons, demographic reasons, 

whatever it is, they cannot fully benefit from these good policy 

changes we hope to do, what is the opportunity of using things like 

more direct Government assistance? Because it seems to me, if we 

can compartmentalize Government support to the area where there 

may be a role for Government—because long term we should not 

think of Government creating jobs; we should think of the private 

sector creating jobs—but in the short term, for those left behind, 

for those people who do not benefit immediately from all the good 

policy things we want to do, what is the opportunity for us in terms 

of, you know, just theoretical numbers if Government were more 

proactive in subsidizing or matching with employers? 

Because I have seen examples at your university, Dr. Holzer, at 

the Law Center at Georgetown—I happen to be on the Board of the 

University so I know a little bit about the programs there—the 

Law Center has been facing these very high, very difficult environment for lawyers graduating. Now these are very well trained people. These are not the kind of people we are typically talking about 

in terms of this discussion. 

But they put in place a program where, through philanthropy 

they would subsidize people’s entry into jobs. So they would go to 

employers and they would basically say you can hire this trained 

person, but at a fraction for a period of time, and we will subsidize 

it. And they used philanthropy to do it. 

And the results, in terms of the number of people who actually 

did receive full-time employment, were staggering. Because when 
23 

you get someone in your operation and you like them and they are 

doing a good job, you tend to work to try to find a place for them. 

So what is the opportunity for getting people who are left behind 

with more direct Government intervention into the workforce in 

terms of numbers? Does anyone have a sense for that? I apologize 

for the long-winded question. 

Dr. Holzer. I’ll take a little stab at it. I think as more jobs become created slowly—it will probably take most of the rest of the 

decade—as that is happening, I think it is important for Government to create a more effective education and workforce system 

that is tailoring the skills creation to meet those job requirements. 

That can include high quality career and technical education in 

high school. Better use of community colleges. All to make sure 

that they are—and there’s a set of things we can do to make the 

skill creation more responsive to the demand side of the labor market. So that is one important thing for Government to do. 

But you’re right. Some people will not benefit from that. I think 

we have to be careful about this idea of subsidized jobs in the private sector. We have some of those programs now, like the Work 

Opportunity Tax Credit. The take-up rate is very low. The employer interest is often very low. 

As soon as the subsidy ends, the employment ends. So it has a 

role, but I think we have to be careful not to oversell it. 

Now in some cases, when the jobs start coming back, some of 

these older workers, the best they are going to do is a low-wage 

service sector job, a greeting job at Wal-Mart. We can make those 

jobs better and more attractive by supplementing them with wage 

insurance, where again the Government is offsetting some of the 

loss between the old job and the new job. 

So for different groups of people in different parts of that recovery, I think there are positive roles that the Government can play 

to sort of enhance what happens in the private sector. 

Representative Delaney. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. Johnson. Minnesota actually had a program that it enacted 

back in the early 1980s when we had one of our last severe recessions. It was an employment and economic development program 

where there was a direct subsidy to employers for six months. But 

the issue always came up: What about if they didn’t keep the person on afterwards? 

So there was actually a clawback provision for an extra 18—actually it was an 18-month contract; first 6 months subsidized, the 

next year that you monitored was unsubsidized and they had to 

pay it back. It got a little cumbersome to do, but it actually did 

grow jobs at a pretty steady rate. They had to prove they were new 

jobs, et cetera, and pay a decent wage. 

So it has been done, and other states have replicated that. 

Representative Delaney. If I could have one more quick question? 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Representative Cummings is here 

now—— 

Representative Delaney. Oh, sorry. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. All right, we are going to go to Representative Cummings. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you. 
24 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Thank you. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you, Madam Chairlady. 

While the overall unemployment rate has dropped to 7.6 percent 

as of March, the same is not true for the African American unemployment rate which hovers at 13.5 percent. I can tell you in the 

neighborhood where I live, the African American male unemployment rate is probably more like about 40 percent. 

Further, although long-term and very long-term unemployment 

rates for African Americans have slowly decreased since the height 

of the economic downturn, African Americans are faring much 

worse than Caucasians, and are currently over represented among 

the long-term unemployed. 

A study released in February by Brandeis University’s Institute 

on Assets and Social Policy that followed a group of families over 

a 25-year time period from 1984 to 2009 found, and I quote: 

‘‘That while wealth grew for African-Americans as they achieve 

life advances, that growth is at a considerably lower rate than it 

is for Whites experiencing the same accomplishments.’’ End of 

quote. 

The study found a persistent widening of the wealth gap over 

that time frame. In planning long-term fiscal policy, what measures can we take to ensure that all Americans have access to equal 

opportunities for employment? And what additional measures 

should we take specific to communities of color to confront the over 

representation we are seeing in long-term unemployment among 

these communities? 

And let me just add a note and say that one of the things that 

concerns me, among many things, is I watch folks who are unemployed for long periods of time, and I listen to the President talk 

about the chain CPI, and I am just wondering as they march toward a point of retirement, if they have a job, then you’ve got a 

large group that are say between 53 and 65 who lost jobs, who will 

probably never get those jobs back, need retraining. The employers 

are not that anxious to hire them because, as you well know, of 

age. And I would just like to have your comments. 

Because I’m telling you, it is becoming quite a serious problem 

for many, many reasons. And I have had so many people living in 

the inner city of Baltimore, I have had many people come up to me, 

particularly men, and say: Cummings, I don’t know what to do. 

They don’t know where to go. They don’t know how to get a job. 

And then, sadly, there is a group that have a criminal record. 

And in the book, ‘‘The New Jim Crow,’’ which is a very interesting 

book, it talks about how there are groups of African American men 

in particular who are basically being completely left out of everything—opportunities, voting, everything. 

And so I am just trying to figure out, when we look at the policies of this country with regard to unemployment, I would just like 

to hear some of your comments on what I just said. 

Mr. Holzer. 

Dr. Holzer. Mr. Cummings, first of all you’re right. So every 

time—the unemployment rate of African Americans is almost always twice the White rate. So if it is 4 percent among Whites, it 

is going to be 8 among African Americans. If the unemployment 
25 

rate among Whites goes up by 4 points, it will go up by about 8 

points among African Americans. 

So in a downturn, they get hit much harder. And subsequently 

when things recover, they benefit more from the recovery. But 

since the recovery so far in the market has been so weak, you are 

absolutely right that that group gets hit the hardest. 

And then separately from that, even in the best of times we have 

groups that do not show up at all in the unemployment rates: less 

educated Black men more than anyone else. They have the problems of low education, low work experience, criminal records, often 

they’re in arrears on child support so they get hit hard by that system. And a lot of these things actually drive them underground. 

So I think all of the strategies that the four of us have talked 

about today, if they work, I think will disproportionately benefit 

the African American community. Some of the job creation, the 

subsidized hiring that Dr. Hassett talked about, some of Mr. Johnson’s ideas, if they work at all they will work even more to help 

in the African American community. 

So I think doing those things will disproportionately benefit. At 

the same time, we also need to keep our eye on the long-term ball. 

Because even in the best of times, you have these under-represented groups, and talk about making the criminal justice system 

less penalizing in terms of work experience, reforms in child support that doesn’t drive these men out of the labor market. And 

major changes in the education system, certainly starting in high 

school, that prevent them from disconnecting in the first place. 

So the one set of shorter term policies are very important, and 

so are the longer term policies that keep them connected and prevent them from disappearing and falling into those cracks. 

Representative Cummings. Dr. Hassett. 

Dr. Hassett. Thank you for your question, Mr. Cummings. It is 

an incredibly important one, and one that I have worked a lot on 

lately and thought a lot about, going back to the work sharing 

work that I did a couple of years ago. 

One of the things that I find most clear in the data is that hire 

rates for African Americans are kind of about the same. It seems 

like if an African American and someone else applies for a job, that 

the hire rate will be about the same. But the reason we get into 

this boat where the unemployment rate is always higher is the job 

destruction rates for African Americans are much higher. 

So it seems like when employers are laying people off, they tend 

to lay African Americans off with a higher rate. And so that was 

one reason why I was so optimistic with the work sharing bill that 

I know was passed about a year ago that it would help with this 

problem, because if we could slow job destruction then we should 

disproportionately benefit African Americans. 

And I have been following the data since the law changed and 

have been very disappointed with the takeup rates of the states— 

except there are some exceptions like Rhode Island. In a work in 

progress right now we are sort of checking to see if the disproportionate benefit that we expected for the places that have taken the 

new federal monies to expand their work sharing programs are 

having the expected effect. 
26 

If they are, I think that it would light an extra fire under us to 

try to get states to take advantage of the new program that just 

became law. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Thank you, very much. 

Dr. Hassett, could you explain again the work sharing program? 

You probably did it earlier and I—— 

Dr. Hassett. Oh, yes. Sure. And the basic idea is that in many 

European countries you could say lay off a person, and then they 

would get unemployment insurance just like here in the United 

States. Or you could reduce five people’s hours by 20 percent, and 

then each of them would get say 20 percent of their unemployment 

insurance. And so that you could spread the pain of labor cost adjustment out across the workforce. 

As an employer you have an incentive to do that because then 

when times get good again you have got the workers right there 

so you can ramp up production right away. And from the point of 

view of the employee, you won’t have that scarring effect of not 

having a job that has been one of the main focuses of this hearing. 

And so I think that it was absolutely prudent to try to expand 

programs like this as kind of an unemployment insurance reform, 

as recently happened in the United States. But the problem is that 

the state Governments all have a lot of say in how they run, and 

nobody has really invested in getting this, we could think of it as 

kind of a fractional unemployment insurance program, or work 

sharing, to getting it off the ground except in a few places. 

And the few places, especially Rhode Island, that have focused on 

this have seen a pretty large take-up; that employers are taking 

advantage of the fact that they can kind of hoard their valuable 

workers a little bit more because of the work-sharing program. 

My guess, again, is that it would disproportionately benefit African Americans because of this layoff—they disproportionately bear 

layoffs—and it is something I think we need to really focus on as 

we think about policy actions that we can take. 

The federal monies only last for a couple of years right now 

under the current law. And so it is something that we will definitely be having hearings about soon to talk about extending that, 

and thinking about what could be done to make more—— 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. And also where it works, it sounds like, 

which states are doing it in a way that has the most positive results. 

Dr. Hassett. And whether it works. When I’ve testified about 

this in hearings on this topic, I’ve done a lot of work on the programs in Europe and how they work. And there is very strong evidence that they have the desired goals in Europe. 

But we do not have enough data yet in the United States to be 

fully sure that they are working the way they do in Europe. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Oh, Dr. Johnson, did you want to add 

something? 

Mr. Johnson. A couple of things. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. ‘‘Mister’’ Johnson, I elevated your title. 

Mr. Johnson. Pardon? 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. I called you Dr. Johnson. 
27 

Mr. Johnson. You elevated my title. Call me what you want, 

but don’t call me late for supper. 

[Laughter.] 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. That is a Minnesota saying. 

Mr. Johnson. Some things we have done with special populations, because frankly every person has a challenge—and some 

populations of people have more—is to work with what we have 

noted here as ‘‘prevocational academies.’’ 

It is one thing to teach folks how to find a job that is generic for 

any industry, but if you are really, honestly going to get into an 

industry that is going to pay a living wage, you are going to have 

to get inside that industry and make sure that your interest and 

your abilities and your background is aligned with where you are 

headed so you do not have surprises down the road. 

And we can link them with employers in mentoring kinds of relationships, bring them right in. And the whole idea of background 

checks, we actually do that up front for the purpose of having a 

conversation. Because too often we ask people, for example, going 

into health care, do you have any issues that would come to the 

attention of an employer because this is going to be difficult for 

you, and they’d say no. But we do the background check and sure 

enough they do. 

So let’s talk about this. This may not be the right career for you. 

But there are others that are. There are employers that are much 

more willing to work with that population than others, and bonding 

and things. 

One last program, there are things we can do to reach out to employers, but we want employers to reach out to these populations 

as well. Tomorrow night I will have an awards ceremony that we 

do every year. We call it the Best Places to Work. It’s an actual 

study that is done with applicants of employers who submit their 

data about how many people they have working there, their wages, 

their turnover rate, and how much money they are putting into 

their training and professional development. 

And for those employers that do that, they are able to get a banner. And they are very proud of it and put it on the side of their 

building ‘‘They’re one of the best places to work.’’ 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. And you do this in the Rochester, Minnesota—— 

Mr. Johnson. In Southeast Minnesota. And so I think we need 

to find those examples where things are working, and celebrate 

them, and try to get other people to follow. And that is very helpful, too. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Very good. 

Did you want to have any other questions, Representative 

Cummings? 

Representative Cummings. I know that you all have already 

talked about this whole idea that there seems to be some stigma 

when you have been unemployed for a long time. I didn’t believe 

that. 

I didn’t believe that people felt that way. But I talked to some 

of the employers in my District, and one of the things they said is 

that they believe that a person who is very, very, very, very valu-
28 

able, and who is excellent, would not go without a job for a long 

period of time. I heard that over and over again. 

And so they seem to have this assumption that because somebody has been out of work, even with all the circumstances that we 

have in our recessionary time that we are in, they still have that 

presumption. And it was just interesting. 

I did not expect to hear that. I really didn’t. Although I had read 

that. So I don’t know whether you all have talked about this or not, 

but I can follow up. 

Mr. Johnson. I just have a comment that of all the statistics we 

talk about, when we get caught in a recession there is the assumption we have this abundance of workers and, you know, a glut of 

folks out there. 

Demographics, when you look at our birth rates and the projected retirement rates of those that should be retiring here very 

shortly, we actually have a shrinking growth rate of the population 

that is eligible for work. And that is one thing I have to keep telling employers, that this actually is a labor shortage being masked 

by a softening in the economy; that, don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are in a buyer’s market. You are going to need to pay 

attention. 

We cannot afford to have anybody sitting on the sidelines. We 

never could, but we always had people on the sidelines. We are not 

going to get where we need to go if we do not get everyone in the 

workforce. 

So once you get aware of that, you know, they need to help us 

figure out how to get that population worked with. 

Representative Cummings. Thank you. 

Vice Chair Klobuchar. Anyone? 

[No response.] 

Well I just want to thank everyone for coming. This has actually 

been something of a freewheeling discussion. I think we have found 

some common ground on some things, and I guess the few points 

I want to make is that we clearly have some challenges ahead. 

We do want to remind ourselves that we have seen improvement, 

not anywhere near where we want to be but we have definitely 

seen improvement and we have not seen a worsening of the economy. The unemployment rate at 7.6 percent fell to its lowest levels 

since December of 2008, and over 1.2 million private-sector jobs 

have been added in the past 6 months. 

But what we have focused on here is that the long-term unemployment rate remains high; 39 percent of the unemployed have 

been out of work for over 6 months, and 27 percent have been out 

of work for at least a year. 

And as our study has shown, and as Representative Cummings 

was just discussing, certain groups of workers, including younger 

workers, and Black and Hispanic workers, have higher rates of 

long-term unemployment. More than 50 percent of older unemployed workers remain jobless for over 6 months. 

While we see these positive signs, I think we showed the chart 

that showed that in 2009 there were nearly 7 unemployed workers 

for every job opening. Now there are about 3 unemployed workers 

for each job opening. That is good, but we also know that geographically there are issues throughout the country. And the things 
29 

that I have taken away from this are that, first of all, the jobs, as 

we all know, and I think everyone up here agreed, come out of the 

private sector. That is where our best bet is for increasing our employment, and our role in Congress, as Representative Delaney has 

pointed out, is really to put forward some policies that will encourage that growth, whether it is bringing down our debt in a balanced way so we do not cause a sharp contraction to the economy, 

whether it is making sure we are getting our part of the game 

when it comes to exports, and then of course making sure our policies work in the tax area that we do some simplification and, reduce the business tax rate but paying for it by closing some of the 

loopholes. 

So we have things that we need to do here. At the same time, 

I think we have all acknowledged that there are two major problems going on here. The first is the skills gap, which affects certain 

areas more than others. You are right, Dr. Hall, about the private 

sector growth. But you just ask any of my private sector managers 

in Minnesota and they will tell you, okay, I have all this growth 

I want to do but I do not have the workers to do it. 

They are not down on their workers. They just have job openings 

in everything from welding at Agco in Jackson, to people who are 

able to run the Medtronics equipment that makes these complicated medical devices that we manufacture in Minnesota. 

So there is clearly an issue in some states that have a lot of hightech manufacturing where we need help there. In terms of the solutions, I think a lot of that is we have bills to double the STEM 

schools, to put more research at that high school level to engage 

kids in being interested in science, technology, engineering, and 

math. And then making a much better use of our 1- and 2-year degree programs, which I know the President is devoted to, and having a lot of that occur at the high school level. 

Back when I went to high school, we had VoTech, and kids would 

get on a bus and go to VoTech. Now they are no longer just learning to change tires; it has become much more complicated. And it 

is even more of a reason to start at an early age. 

The second thing that I think is difficult are these, what Dr. 

Hassett and many of you identified, the same issue that Congressman Cummings was talking about, is the scars, that develop with 

the long-term unemployed. That makes it very hard for them to get 

these jobs. 

And so I think that is something that is going to be a harder 

problem to work on, but that we cannot let go. Because we look at 

the fact that we are competing against these countries that somehow are able to get some of their kids into jobs right away, and 

they are functioning and happy and have jobs that they like. We 

have got to be doing the same things here and helping with the 

long-term unemployed. 

I hope that summarizes where people are. I would add one little 

sop for a policy that I am excited about. We just had 2 days of 

hearings in the Judiciary Committee on immigration. We had 23 

witnesses on Monday, for the bill, including everyone from the 

head of the Migrant Workers to Grover Norquist, testifying in favor 

of moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform. 
30 

One of the things in there, which has attracted some attention, 

are the H1B visas and reasons to lift that cap somewhat, while at 

the same time making sure that we are not rewarding pure 

outsourcing and things like that. 

One little nugget in that, which I am getting to, which goes to 

some of our training issues, is that Senator Hatch and I in our 

original bill, and the Chamber supported it, added $1,000 to every 

H1B visa. That money was going directly to STEM. It came to $3 

to $5 billion directly to our schools for science, technology, engineering, and math. 

The Gang of 8 proposal actually did not increase those visa fees, 

and out of the hearings the general counsel for Microsoft said they 

would actually agree to go more than $1,000 in increases, that they 

would double. And I think this is an acknowledgement that companies—there are companies that want to employ more people in the 

United States. 

Some of this temporary problem can be bridged with some of the 

workers that can come in. But beyond that, we really need to train 

our own. And so that is a major problem, in addition to the longterm unemployment issues that we have been discussing. 

And then of course at its core is economic growth, which we have 

seen some of but not enough. And I am still hopeful that we are 

going to be able to come to some kind of a compromise. There is 

so much interest in the Senate right now—you might not be able 

to tell on TV, but there is—in terms of trying to get a major deal, 

so that we can give companies that are holding onto money the incentive to invest, and that we can really have an even playing field 

going forward so we are not playing red light/green light with our 

tax codes and other things. 

So that is our job. But I want to thank you for lending a lot of 

light, and doing so in a civil manner, which Congressman Brady 

and I have worked really hard to maintain in this committee, so 

that we actually use this as a way to get some ideas that people 

can use and make points and reach out in ways. And you have supported that. 

I want to thank all of you for that. And with that, we will conclude the hearing. And I will put Congressman Brady’s statement 

in the record. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Brady appears in the Submissions for the Record on page 52.] 

Thank you, and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., Wednesday, April 24, 2013, the hearing was adjourned.] 
(31) 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 
32 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANDY R. JOHNSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WORKFORCE

DEVELOPMENT, INC., ROCHESTER, MN 

I would like to start by thanking Chairman Brady and Vice-Chair Klobuchar for 

calling this hearing on the Long-Term Unemployed. They represent a special challenge, but in many ways they reflect our local economies and ways we cope as society. 

Thirty years ago I found myself unemployed, and my wife out of work while expecting our first child. That experience made an indelible impression on me, and 

I vowed to work toward building a better public system to help those in similar situations. In many respects I believe we have succeeded. Back then, our electronic job 

matching resources were decades away, and the internet and social media systems 

that now connect people to jobs were inconceivable. We now have One-Stop Job Centers with multiple partners present to provide coordinated services. Yet the economy 

continues to change rapidly and can be a challenge for the unemployed to keep up. 

In SE MN we serve an average of 1,500 dislocated workers a year, and regularly 

post a return-on-investment of $3 for every $1 dollar invested by getting them back 

to work. We have found that the most critical element in getting people re-employed 

is early intervention, and to meet people one-on-one up front for a career planning 

session to start the process of rebuilding relationships. A good example of this was 

witnessed recently in our area with the return of Minnesota’s National Guard unit 

from Iraq and Kuwait. Every soldier who had reported a need for employment was 

given a career assessment while they were still in theater, and when they returned 

they all were connected to a career counselor from the One-Stop Workforce Center. 

We assembled 108 private sector employers, and 60 different partner agencies to be 

grounded in the challenges veterans face, and then provided sector-based job information at their 30 and 60 day re-integration events. As a result, veteran’s unemployment in our area is now lower than their civilian counterparts and one of the 

lowest in the nation at just over 1%. 

Older workers provide a special challenge. Half of all our unemployed age 50 and 

older have been unemployed for over a year. In addition, we’ve found that 25% of 

this group self-describes as having no real computer or social media skills. However, 

the convenient electronic tools we now have to seek work can ensure even less 

human interaction during the day. One way we have had success is bringing people 

together for ‘‘brown bag’’ meetings, where people can get together and share job 

leads and bolster each others’ spirits. We also use this time to build resumes in 

group, while identifying life experiences they’ve had for which colleges might grant 

a ‘‘Credit for prior Learning.’’ One man told us that if it weren’t for these gatherings, he wouldn’t have any reason to get out of bed in the morning. Short term 

training also shows good results with older workers—just yesterday I learned of a 

55 year old unemployed engineer that had been out of work for over 2 years who 

found work at $6/hr over his past wage after we provided 6-Sigma quality control 

training. Note: we need to make sure the Workforce Investment Act recognizes this 

kind of effort as attaining a ‘‘credential.’’ 

Good jobs with a solid future are growing, but they often require the jobseeker 

to take a risk and change careers. To lessen the risk, we have had great success 

in providing month-long pre-vocational ‘‘Career Academies’’ for adults who are looking to move into Health Care, Advanced Manufacturing or Alternative Energy. Our 

Academy graduates more than double their completion rate in subsequent education, and significantly reduce their turn-over rate on the job. One woman shared 

that attending one of our Health Care Academies was, ‘‘the best thing I have ever 

done for myself!’’ Note: despite our Academy successes that were chronicled as a national ‘‘Best Practice’’ by the GAO last year, the Workforce Investment Act does not 

recognize the expenditures as training. 

As the economy recovers, we find more employers eager to add full-time, good paying jobs—but according to employers, the only good way to find out if the applicant 

has the skills they are looking for is to try them out in an internship, an apprenticeship or some other kind of on-the-job training experience. We need to make sure 

we have the right tools to make it easier for employers to participate in work-based 

training and take a chance on the long-term unemployed. Here are some examples 

of work-based learning services that could help reduce long-term unemployment: 

• Assist the States in developing an electronic ‘‘work-based learning clearinghouse’’ that would help employers connect with individuals seeking an internship or another on-the-job learning experience. 

• Incent employers to consider the long-term unemployed, by providing ‘‘Adult 

Try-Out Employment’’ experiences in the private sector that would have the 

workforce service provider act as the employer of record during the initial 2 
33 

1The ideas presented in this document do not represent official positions of the Mercatus Center or George Mason University. 

months of work, and then cost shared in the next 2 months (reference—‘‘Platform to Employment’’ pilot). 

• Consider offering a ‘‘wage replacement’’ differential between a jobseeker’s new 

starting wage and their past employment as they start out—especially in the 

case of long-term, older workers seeking employment with small employers. 

Thank you, once again for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the public 

workforce system and the long-term unemployed. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. KEITH HALL, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, MERCATUS

CENTER AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY1

Chairman Brady, Vice Chairwoman Klobuchar, and Members of the Committee: 

thank you for the chance to discuss the current employment situation and how longterm unemployment has affected and will continue to affect economic growth. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. 

We are now a full three years from the labor market trough of the Great Recession. Job creation has been relatively steady but modest since 2011. We averaged 

about 175,000 new jobs per month in 2011; 183,000 per month in 2012; and 168,000 

jobs per month so far this year. While this job growth is welcome, it is far short 

of what we need to achieve a full labor market recovery. Two significant problems 

have become evident through this lengthy period of slow job growth. First, there has 

been an unprecedented disengagement from the labor force with current participation at its lowest level in almost 35 years. This means there are currently 102 million jobless people in the United States, but less than 12 million are still actively 

looking for work and therefore counted as unemployed. Second, the number of longterm unemployed is at a record high. They currently represent over 4.6 million people, and the long-term unemployment rate (the share of the labor force unemployed 

for over six months) remains well above historical levels at 3.0 percent. 

Comparing the current situation with that of October 2009 helps put the effects 

of the disengagement from the labor market into perspective. In that October, the 

unemployment rate was at the recession high of 10.0 percent, and 41.5 percent of 

the working age population were without jobs. Today, the unemployment rate has 

fallen to 7.6 percent, but labor force participation has declined so much that the jobless rate remains the same 41.5 percent. By this latter measure, we’ve made little 

progress towards a full labor market recovery. I estimate that there are over 5 million people missing from the unemployment rate because of the disengagement from 

the labor force caused by the Great Recession and slow recovery. 

The other significant problem is that we currently have 4.6 million long-term unemployed. Although the long-term unemployment rate of 3.0 percent is down from 

the record high of 4.3 percent from early 2010, it remains well above the previous 

record high. Furthermore, two-thirds of these people have been jobless for over a 

year and might be classified as very long-termed unemployed. Large as these numbers are, they dramatically underestimate the long-term jobless problem. The same 

disengagement from the labor force that has driven down the unemployment rate 

without reducing joblessness has led to a serious underestimation of the problem. 

To be counted as long-term unemployed (as opposed to long-term jobless), an individual needs to: 

• Have no work whatsoever for at least six months 

• Want to work and be nearly instantly available if offered work 

• Be actively looking for work. By ‘‘actively’’ looking, I mean that every month 

this individual must send out a resume, contact an employer directly, engage 

an employment agency, or engage in some other sort of activity that, by itself, 

could result in employment. Checking for new job openings on the internet or 

in the newspaper alone does not qualify as active job search. 

This sets a high bar for someone to remain ‘‘unemployed’’ for long enough to be 

considered as long-term unemployed. In 2007, the average unemployed person who 

eventually exited the labor force looked unsuccessfully for work for just under nine 

weeks. In 2011, this had risen to over 21 weeks. That means the average person 

that left the labor force did so before even being classified as long-term unemployed 

and almost certainly could eventually be called long-term jobless. Consequently, millions of people have dropped from the labor force over the past five years who perhaps should be counted as long-term unemployed but are not. 
34 

We can make a simple calculation to get some idea of the actual number of longterm jobless. Every two years the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects the size 

of the U.S. labor force. BLS first examines the future size and composition of the 

population as affected by the trends in births, deaths, and immigration. Then it analyzes the trends in labor force participation rates of different age, gender, race, and 

ethnic groups in a total of 136 separate categories and makes its projections. 

In 2007, just prior to the Great Recession, BLS estimated that labor force participation would decline slowly (about 0.1 percent per year), due mainly to the aging 

of the U.S. population. Using this as an estimate of what would have happened in 

the U.S. labor market if the recession had not occurred, we can calculate the number of people that unexpectedly dropped out of the labor force, presumably due to 

the recession [see graph 1 below]. If these people had not stopped actively looking 

for work and dropped out of the labor force, they would be counted as unemployed. 

It is impossible to know how many have been jobless for over six months, but considering that the average time spent searching before becoming inactive is about 22 

weeks, this number could be as high as 5 million. Since there were 5.1 million people counted as long-term unemployed in 2012, the long-term jobless rate could be 

as much as twice as high as its current 3.0 percent [see graph 2 below]. 

Over time, the incidence of long-term unemployment has likely been increased because of the aging population in the United States and because of the higher level 

of labor force participation by women. The former creates higher levels of long-term 

unemployment because older, longer-tenured workers who are less likely to move in 

and out of employment are declining as a share of the labor force. Also, during the 

current recession and its aftermath, the extension of unemployment insurance benefits has likely contributed to the number of long-term jobless. Designed to ameliorate the negative financial impact of unemployment, unemployment insurance 

makes workers more willing to reject job offers in the hope of receiving a better offer 

in the future. This delays the movement from unemployment back to employment 

and raises the number of long-term unemployed. Although the size of the estimated 

effect varies, virtually every study on the effects of unemployment insurance finds 

that it has a negative influence on reemployment. 

Despite these other influences, the main reason for the current, unprecedented 

level of long-term joblessness is weak economic growth. Since the end of the recession over three years ago, we have not had sufficiently strong economic growth to 

strengthen the labor market and trigger the rehiring of the long-term unemployed. 

There is a predictable business cycle pattern to long-term unemployment. The 

number of long-term unemployed rises well after a recession begins and continues 

to rise well after the official end of a recession. The latter is simply because the 

process of full labor market recovery requires that GDP grow faster than its longterm trend. After the 2001 recession, this did not happen until mid-year 2003. The 

economic expansion between the 2001 and 2007 recessions was too mild and too 

short to result in a full rehiring of the long-term unemployed from the previous recession. As a result, when the Great Recession began, we already had a historically 

high long-term unemployment rate for a recession onset. But the primary reason is 

that the current economic recovery appears to be the weakest in 60 years. The recession officially ended in 2009; economic growth has been weak since then, though 

consistently positive, and the trend is not encouraging. The recovery began in 2010 

with GDP growth of 2.4 percent, but rather than strengthening, it has steadily 

slowed—with growth falling to 2.0 percent in 2011 and to just 1.7 percent last year. 

This is too slow to support strong job growth. In fact, this level of slow growth has 

historically resulted in much slower job growth than we’ve actually seen. Economic 

growth alone would have predicted just 134,000 jobs per month in 2011 and 120,000 

jobs per month in 2012 [see chart 3 below]. This effect can also be seen in the very 

weak labor productivity growth that we’ve experienced over the past two years. 

The challenges for the long-term unemployed and jobless are daunting. Joblessness is costly, particularly for high-tenure workers who have invested time and resources in job-specific knowledge and skills. Studies consistently show that the 

longer someone is unemployed, the less likely they are to find new work. They may 

have lost job skills over time, have less connection with informal job networks, or 

face potential employers more reluctant to hire the long-term jobless. And because 

those with job skills in shortest supply will be reemployed first, the ranks of the 

long-term jobless may accumulate those that worked in permanently declining industries and those that have job skills that don’t translate well to new employers 

or industries. 

Even after being reemployed, the permanent lost earnings for the jobless will likely be significant. Studies have shown that it can take as long as 20 years for reemployed workers to catch up on lost earnings, largely due to skill mismatches between 

the jobs lost and the new jobs created in the economy. These losses occur for work-
35 

ers with different lengths of previous job tenure, in all major industries, and for 

workers of any age. Recent estimates of the permanent earning losses range from 

1.4 years of earnings in good times to 2.8 years during times of high unemployment 

(above 8 percent). After such an unprecedentedly deep recession and extended period of weak job growth, the job mismatch both now and in the future is likely to 

be the cause of even larger permanent earnings losses. 

While the rate of economic growth affects the labor market, the high level of longterm unemployment also affects economic growth. For example, the Congressional 

Budget Office routinely estimates ‘‘potential’’ GDP as a measure of what level of national income could be generated if the economy were at full employment. The 

CBO’s most recent estimate suggests we are still losing about a trillion dollars a 

year from the effects of the Great Recession, five years after it ended. There is also 

concern that we will have a permanently higher level of unemployment going forward. Although it is, in my opinion, far too early to have a good idea if this will 

happen, a permanently higher level of joblessness will result in lower income 

growth. 

Finally, the number of long-term unemployed also has significant impact on the 

level of Government spending. Estimates place the annual expenditure on meanstested Government programs at a trillion dollars a year. More broadly, spending on 

the whole range of Government programs designed to provide for assistance under 

circumstances of unemployment, poverty, sickness, and retirement has surged in recent years. This spending, called Government Social Benefits to Persons, is estimated every quarter by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Their data shows that 

American households now have an unprecedented dependence on these Government 

programs. A remarkable 17.2% of total household income now comes from Government social benefits, and such spending tracks pretty closely to the jobless rate (the 

share of the working age population without employment) [see Graph 4 below]. 

In closing, the recovery from the effects of the Great Recession on the labor market has been very slow. One of the results of this slow progress has been the unprecedented growth in the number of long-term unemployed and, as bad as this official 

data appears, it underestimates the problem. There are almost certainly millions of 

people that are long-term jobless that are not considered unemployed. Although 

other factors may have contributed to this, the main cause is slow economic growth. 

The only real solution to this problem is a significant and sustained increase in economic growth. Unfortunately, just as slow economic growth has created long-term 

joblessness, long-term joblessness is helping to hold back economic growth and has 

had a significant impact on Government spending. 

I thank you again for inviting me here today and I would be happy to take any 

questions. 
36 
37 

1 Job vacancy rates are available every month from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Jobs Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) news release. Vacancy rates in manufacturing and 

health care are routinely higher than the new hire rates observed in those sectors, where the 

opposite is true in most others. This indicates relatively longer vacancy durations in these two 

sectors, consistent with other descriptions of employers who have difficulty filling jobs there 

Continued 

ABOUT THE MERCATUS CENTER AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is a research, education, and 

outreach organization that works with scholars, policy experts, and Government officials to connect academic learning and real-world practice. 

The mission of Mercatus is to promote sound interdisciplinary research and application in the humane sciences that integrates theory and practice to produce solutions that advance in a sustainable way a free, prosperous, and civil society. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith Hall is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason 

University. From 2008 until 2012 he served as the thirteenth Commissioner of the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics. In this role, he headed the principal fact-finding agency 

in the Federal Government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics. The 

BLS is an independent national statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, 

and disseminates essential statistical data to the American public, the U.S. Congress, other Federal agencies, State and local Governments, business, and labor. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. HARRY J. HOLZER, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Good morning. I would like to make the following points about structural and 

long-term unemployment, as well as the future earnings prospects of various groups 

of U.S. workers. 

1. Structural unemployment in the United States has probably risen by 

about 1 percentage point during the labor market downturn and slow recovery since 2007, though it is unclear how much of this increase will persist 

over time. 

Most of the increase in unemployment since 2007 reflects insufficient employer 

demand for workers. But the job vacancy rate (now at 2.8%) is higher than we 

might expect with so much unemployment. Employers in some sectors (like health 

care and advanced manufacturing) seem to have genuine difficulty filling jobs requiring specific skills, while others are moving more slowly to fill jobs when demand 

for their products remains limited and uncertain.1
38 

(such as Barnow et al., 2013 for health care and Fletcher, 2011 for manufacturing). Elsby et 

al. (2012) show that job vacancy rates have grown relative to unemployment rates in the past 

few years, suggesting an outward shift of the ‘‘Beveridge Curve’’ over time. But Peter Cappelli 

(2012) and Catherine Rampell (2013) describe lengthy vacancy durations among some employers 

who do not seem too eager to fill these jobs. Regarding ‘‘structural’’ unemployment, Estevao and 

Tsounta (2011) show evidence of growing skill mismatches generating such unemployment differences across states, while Elsby et al. (op. cit.) and Daly et al. (2012) attribute growing structural unemployment to temporary factors, such as longer periods covered by Unemployment Insurance and also employer uncertainty. 2See Elsby et al. (2012) and Valletta (2013) for evidence that those with longer unemployment 

spells tend to find new jobs more slowly than those with shorter spells. Both studies show that 

reemployment rates stop declining with longer unemployment spells at some point; in the latter 

(more recent) paper, this occurs after about 20 months of unemployment. Also, see Ghayad and 

Dickens (2012) for evidence that only long-term unemployment drives the shifting out of the 

Beveridge Curve noted above. 3 In the first quarter of 2013, the unemployment rate (not seasonally adjusted) was 8.1% nationwide but 24.2% for teens, 14.1% for youth aged 20–24, and only 6.1% for those 55 and older. 

But median durations of unemployment (in weeks) throughout 2012 were 19.3 for all, and 9.5, 

14.2 and 30.5 for the three age subgroups, respectively. 4See Kahn (2010) and von Wachter (2010) for evidence on the relatively lower wages for many 

years of young workers who enter the job market during a recession. 5Median durations of unemployment are 17.6 and 24.7 weeks for whites and blacks, respectively. 6See Von Wachter (2010). 

7Goldin and Katz (2008) provide an overview of how educational attainment among American 

workers has failed to keep pace with growing skill demands among employers in the past three 

decades. Symonds et al. (2011) show that American high school graduates are much less prepared for the labor market than those in many OECD countries. Holzer and Dunlop (2013) provide evidence of low completion rates at 2-year and 4-year colleges, especially among minorities 

and low-income students at the latter. Holzer and Lerman (2007) show that employer demand 

in the United States over the past few decades has been fairly strong in ‘‘middle-skill’’ jobs (i.e., 

those requiring some postsecondary education or training below the B.A. level) as well as in 

higher-skill jobs (requiring a B.A. or higher). 

2. Long-term unemployment should have somewhat negative effects on future 

employment prospects, at least for some groups. 

The long-term unemployed are being rehired more slowly than those with short 

unemployment spells, though not by as much as some might expect.2 How well they 

will fare when aggregate job creation picks up remains unclear, and some subgroups 

among the long-term unemployed (like older workers) should have more difficulty 

finding new jobs than others. 

3. The high levels of unemployment during the past 5 years will likely affect 

younger and older workers quite differently as the recovery continues, though 

both might be ‘‘scarred’’ to some extent. Other groups—such as AfricanAmericans and also the children of the dislocated—may be scarred as well. 

Long-term unemployment has increased the most among older workers (ages 55 

and above), even though their overall unemployment rates remain low and their 

work activity has risen during the past 5 years. Older workers lose and leave their 

jobs less frequently than other workers; but they also adapt less quickly to changing 

skill needs in the labor market, partly because employers are reluctant to hire them 

and invest in their training on the job. In contrast, younger workers (ages 24 and 

below) are more frequently unemployed but for much shorter spells.3 They will gain 

jobs more quickly than older workers but at lower wages than usual, and they will 

have more difficulty achieving wage growth by changing jobs. As a result, their 

earnings levels will be relatively lower for many years.4 Black workers also have 

fairly lengthy unemployment spells which could impede their progress during the 

recovery.5 The children of less-educated workers who suffer job loss and extended 

spells of unemployment bear some costs as well, since their own educational attainment suffers (presumably because of the stress experienced at home).6

4. Besides their effects in the past 5 years, imbalances between the skills 

sought by employers and those held by workers have also led to growing 

earnings inequality over time and to lower levels of ‘‘good job’’ creation in 

the United States. 

While educational attainment among Americans has been slowly increasing, too 

many leave high school with very few of the general or sector-specific skills that employers seek. Also, many start college (either 2-year or 4-year) but fail to complete 

any program or gain any credential. Thus the gaps between those who do and do 

not have the skills employers seek has widened over time.7 And employers who perceive difficulty in filling good-paying jobs with highly-skilled workers will likely cre-
39 

8See Holzer et al. (2011) for evidence that employers providing ‘‘good jobs’’—i.e., those paying 

wage and salary premia above market levels in their industry—have sought workers with growing skill levels over time. Holzer (2013) also discusses employer job creation patterns and their 

sensitivity to the availability of skilled workers. 

ate fewer such jobs in the United States, relying instead on technological advances 

or offshoring production activity to meet their needs.8

5. A range of policy responses should be used to address the problems of skill 

imbalances and to improve employment and earnings potential for American 

workers. 

Policies to improve employment outcomes of workers hurt by these structural imbalances might include: 

• Reemployment services, to help them find jobs appropriate to their skill level 

more quickly; 

• Education and training programs, to create worker skills that better match 

newly available jobs; 

• Wage insurance, for displaced workers whose earnings are permanently reduced 

by their loss of a good job; and 

• Carefully targeted job creation strategies while unemployment remains high. 

The appropriate package of benefits and services may differ across groups. Younger workers are more easily trainable for good jobs that require some technical skill, 

especially at community colleges. They might also benefit from a variety of ‘‘earn 

and learn’’ strategies, such as apprenticeships and paid internships related to their 

areas of study. In contrast, older displaced workers might benefit the most from 

‘‘wage insurance,’’ where the Government provides a subsidy to partly offset the permanent loss of earnings that occurs when displaced workers take low-wage jobs. 

And, of course, job creation strategies in the near-term would also help. Public 

spending on the building of infrastructure, tax credits or subsidies for private sector 

employment growth, and public service jobs could all play a positive role in reducing 

unemployment over the next several years. 

REFERENCES

Barnow, Burt; John Trutko and Jaclyn Schede Piatak. 2013. Occupational Labor 

Shortages. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. 

Cappelli, Peter. 2012. Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs. Wharton Digital Press. 

Daly, Mary; Bart Hobijn, Aysegul Sahin, and Robert Valletta. 2012. ‘‘A Search 

and Matching Approach to Labor Markets: Did the Natural Rate of Unemployment 

Rise?’’ The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 26, No. 3. 

Elsby, Michael; Bart Hobijn, Aysegul Sahin, and Robert Valletta. 2012. ‘‘The 

Labor Market in the Great Recession—An Update to September 2011.’’ Brookings 

Papers on Economic Activity. Fall, 353–71. 

Estevao, Marcelo and Evridiki Tsounta. 2011. ‘‘Has the Great Recession Raised 

U.S. Structural Unemployment?’’ International Monetary Fund paper. 

Fletcher, Michael. 2011. ‘‘Why Does Fresno Have Thousands of Job Openings— 

and High Unemployment?’’ The Washington Post, February 11. 

Ghayad, Rand and William Dickens. 2012. ‘‘What Can We Learn by 

Disaggregating the Unemployment-Vacancy Relationship?’’ Public Policy Brief, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 

Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence Katz. 2008. The Race Between Education and Technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Holzer, Harry. 2012. ‘‘Good Workers for Good Jobs: Improving Education and 

Workforce Systems in the U.S.’’ IZA, Journal of Labor Policy, 1:5. 

Holzer, Harry and Erin Dunlop. 2013. ‘‘Just the Facts, Ma’am: Postsecondary 

Education and Labor Market Outcomes in the U.S.’’ CALDER Working Paper, 

American Institutes for Research. 

Holzer, Harry and Robert Lerman. 2007. ‘‘America’s Forgotten Middle-Skill Jobs: 

Education and Training Requirements in the Next Decade and Beyond.’’ Washington, DC, The Workforce Alliance. 

Holzer, Harry; Julia Lane, David Rosenblum and Fredrik Andersson. 2011. Where 

Are All the Good Jobs Going? New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 

Kahn, Lisa. 2010. ‘‘The Long-Term Labor Market Consequences of Graduating 

from College in a Bad Economy.’’ Labour Economics, Vol. 17, No. 2. 

Rampell, Catherine. 2013. ‘‘With Positions to Fill, Employers Wait for Perfection.’’ 

The New York Times, March 6. 
40 

Symonds, William; Robert Schwartz and Ronald Ferguson. 2011. Pathways to 

Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Valletta, Robert. 2013. ‘‘Long Term Unemployment: What Do We Know?’’ Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. 

Von Wachter, Till; Phil Oreopoulos and Andrew Heisz. 2012. ‘‘The Short-Term and 

Long-Term Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession: Hysteresis and Heterogeneity in the Market for College Graduates.’’ American Economic Journal: Applied 

Economics, Vol. 4, No.1. 

Von Wachter, Till. 2010. ‘‘Long-Term Unemployment: Causes, Consequences and 

Solutions.’’ Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, April 29. 
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52 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. KEVIN BRADY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT ECONOMIC

COMMITTEE

The Joint Economic Committee is operating during this Congress with both the 

Chairman and Vice Chair selecting hearing topics. I congratulate Vice Chair 

Klobuchar for selecting today’s topic: Long-Term Unemployment. This is an acute 

problem for our country, and I’m confident that today’s hearing will be a bi-cameral, 

bi-partisan search for solutions. 

The United States suffers from a growth gap. This recovery is the weakest since 

World War II. Compared with an average post-war recovery, our economy is missing 

4.2 million private sector jobs and $1.3 trillion in real GDP. Every American is short 

nearly $3,000 in real disposable income and since the recession bottomed out, more 

Americans have been forced onto food stamps than have found a job. 

Moreover, many economists fear that our anemic recovery has created a ‘‘new normal’’—a reduced potential for economic growth in the future. The Congressional 

Budget Office (CBO) recently lowered its estimate for potential real GDP in the future by one percentage point to 2.3 percent. 

One percent may not seem like much, but its consequences are huge over time. 

Our economy would be $31 trillion smaller in 2062, and the Treasury would collect 

$97 trillion less in tax revenues over the next half-century. 

The growth gap is a major contributor to the significant problem of long-term unemployment. While the official unemployment rate has fallen from a cyclical high 

of 10.0 percent in October 2009 to 7.6 percent in March of this year, this improvement is deceiving. 

Much of this improvement is due to workers leaving the labor force. The labor 

force participation rate has fallen from 66.0 percent at the start of the recession in 

December 2007 to 63.3 percent last month—a low not seen since Jimmy Carter was 

president. Without the decline in the labor force participation rate since President 

Obama took office, the unemployment rate would have actually increased to 11.0 

percent. 

The CBO expects the official unemployment rate to remain above 7.5 percent 

through 2014, which would be the sixth consecutive year with the unemployment 

rate exceeding 7.5 percent, and the longest period of high unemployment in the past 

70 years. 

According to the President’s recently released budget, the unemployment rate will 

not return to its pre-recession levels before 2023. Let me repeat that: according to 

the White House it will take at least a decade before America’s unemployment rate 

returns to its level before the recession. That’s more than disheartening. 

One of the characteristics of our weak labor market is a very long average period 

of unemployment for workers who lose their jobs. 

The average number of weeks for unemployment is currently 37.1—very close to 

the all-time peak of 40.7 weeks in November and December of 2011. In contrast, 

the previous peaks in the average number of weeks of unemployment were much 

shorter: 16.9 weeks in June 1976 after the severe 1973–75 recession, and 21.2 weeks 

in July 1983 after the equally severe 1981–82 recession. 

According to Dr. Janet Yellen, vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the 

Federal Reserve System, three million Americans have been looking for work for one 

year or longer, comprising one quarter of all unemployed workers. Long-term unemployment not only causes economic distress but may cause deterioration in workers’ 

skills and the prospects for future jobs and earnings. 

Worse still, those categorized as long-term unemployed mask a larger problem because the category excludes discouraged workers, marginally attached workers, and 

those working part-time for economic reasons. 

Policymakers should address the problem of long-term unemployment in two 

ways. First, this Committee has shown the close relationship between new jobs 

along Main Street and business investment in buildings, equipment and software. 

Washington must resolve the policy uncertainty that has deterred job-creating business investment during this recovery. 

This means enacting pro-growth tax reform; giving the Federal Reserve a single 

mandate for price stability; gradually bringing our federal budget into balance by 

reforming our unsustainable entitlement programs; returning common sense and 

balance to our regulatory process; and opening new markets around the world for 

American exports. 

Second, we must identify structural problems with our labor market that make 

some unemployed workers difficult to re-employ—even if our economy were booming. In particular, we must identify whether a significant gap has emerged between 

the skills that some of the long-term unemployed possess and the skills that employers are seeking. 
53 

Congress funds numerous job training programs. Some appear to be working more 

successfully than others. Let’s identify the programs that succeed, fund them, and 

then save taxpayer dollars by eliminating the inefficient and wasteful programs. 

Our witnesses include three noted economists: Dr. Harry Holzer, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University; the Honorable Keith Hall, former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and Dr. Kevin Hassett, Senior Fellow and 

Director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Our other 

witness in the field is Mr. Randy Johnson, Executive Director of Workforce Development, Inc. 

With that, I look forward to their testimony. 
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