America's Newly Poor | How Big Is the New Class?

HopeTracker| Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April 2010, unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

The whisper of chronic 10% unemployment in America and milliions of jobs lost and never recovered is the hush hush subject, at a time when the front page debate is balance the budget and stop the movement towards a nanny state.

In real life, the lives of millions of Americans are changing dramatically. Thankfully, the country may be exiting the recession, but the carnage in its wake is significant.There’s little talk of the ‘new America’, left in the recession’s footprint. And yet the size of group — the permanently unemployed — must be tied to the size of America’s recovery. Or — we are now more like a Latin American country that we will every want to acknowledge.

Read on: The New Poor - Despite Signs of Recovery, Long-Term Unemployment Rises NYTimes

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America The Atlantic

Unemployment Photo at Flickr