So many Americans have been jobless for so long that the
government is changing how it records long-term unemployment.
Citing what it calls "an unprecedented rise" in long-term
unemployment, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS),
beginning Saturday, will raise from two years to five years the
upper limit on how long someone can be listed as having been
jobless. The move could help economists better measure the
severity of the nation's prolonged economic downturn. The change
is a sign that bureau officials "are afraid that a cap of two
years may be 'understating the true average duration' — but they
won't know by how much until they raise the upper limit," says
Linda Barrington, an economist who directs the Institute for
Compensation Studies at Cornell University's School of
Industrial and Labor Relations. Likening recessionary
unemployment spikes in recent decades to a storm at sea, she
says, "The waves are getting higher, and we want to understand
the intricacies of how they're made up." The change in