Percentage of Long-Term Unemployed American Workers as of February 2010

The first few months of 2010 have made some cautiously optimistic that we have begun to see initial signs of recovery in our job market. The unemployment rate for February was 9.7 percent, holding steady from the previous month. However, even with the end of the recession last summer and the subsequent slowing of unemployment growth, we are clearly experiencing a jobless recovery.

There are now 14.9 million Americans who have been unemployed for an average of 30 weeks- an all-time high. Of these, 6.1 million (40.9%) have been unemployed for more than six months. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate understates the true weakness of the labor market as it excludes those who want to work but who have given up actively searching as well as people who are working but can't get full-time employment. When these workers are factored in, the number of unemployed and under-employed comes to 26.2 million workers or one in six of all U.S. workers. This is more than double the total at the start of the recession.

A demographic breakdown shows that while all major groups have experienced substantial increases in unemployment, men, racial and ethnic minorities, young workers, and workers with lower levels of schooling are disproportionately feeling the impact. According to the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment was 15.8 percent among black workers and 12.4 percent among Hispanic workers in February, compared to 8.8 percent among white workers (increases of  6.8, 6.1, and 4.4 percentage points, respectively, since the start of the recession). For workers age 25 or older, unemployment reached 10.5 percent for high school educated workers versus five percent for those with a college degree (increases of 5.8 and 2.9 percentage points, respectively, since the start of the recession). And while all states are experiencing some degree of unemployment, it is mostly concentrated in the Midwest, California, and the Southwest.  Michigan's rate, the worst in the nation, was 14.3 percent as of January, while California's stood at 12.5 percent.

In their recent report, the Economic Policy Institute offered some particularly alarming data for workers in those hardest hit groups and their families. It forecasts that unemployment in 2010 could reach 18.1 percent for African American workers nationally and a staggering 27.8 percent for African American workers in Michigan. According to the report, these high rates of joblessness could leave half of all the country's African American children in poverty.

If the economy creates an average of 200,000 jobs a month going forward, which is a reasonable rate by most estimates, it will still take over a decade to reduce unemployment to 5 percent.[1] At the core of this jobless recovery is a significant structural change in our economy that is leading to an oversupply of lower-skilled workers, a geographic "resorting" of where the jobs are, and ongoing uncertainty about the kinds of skills and training that are needed to prepare Americans for the jobs of tomorrow.

This means that, for all the promise of the Jobs Bill recently passed by Congress, this will be, at most, a short-term fix. What is needed is a long-term investment strategy to grow our economy, retool our existing workforce, and prepare the next generation of America's workforce for jobs. This strategy must pay particular attention to race, class, and location of America's workers.

Turning around this dire situation will require a heavy lift for America and demands long-term collaboration among government, foundations, the private sector, and the non-profit sector.  At the Surdna Foundation, while we stand ready to leverage short-term strategies to help America's workers, we are also committed to investing in advocacy, policy reform, practice, and programs that support a longer-term vision and address the core of America's economic and workforce challenges to ensure that we rebuild in a manner that helps us realize a more sustainable and just future for America's workers and communities.  To this end, we are investing in infrastructure and place-making efforts that will not only help put Americans back to work but also strengthen the foundation on which the next, more sustainable economy to grow. At the core of these efforts, it will be critical to make sure those most affected by the recession have access to these jobs, and that the jobs created from these investments are quality jobs that lead to additional opportunities for further skill-building and career advancement.

We are also committed to improving the overall effectiveness, efficiency, and connectivity of economic development, education, and workforce development efforts, investing in strategies that break down the silos among these systems to maximize their impact to help low- and moderate-income workers. In addition, we recognize that our identities' as Americans are changing and so we are committed to growing our economy to include workers that reflect the changing demographics of our population. Therefore we are supporting the development of high-growth, minority-owned businesses so that our economy of tomorrow better represents who we are as Americans.

Finally, we recognize that it is not enough to simply create jobs if those jobs do not offer family-sustaining wages, benefits, opportunities for career advancement and self-fulfillment. Nor is it sustainable when a worker comes back to her community without strategies to protect her earnings through responsible financial tools that help her build and preserve assets. This gap, in part, has led us to the economic challenges we are facing today. For this purpose, we will invest in strategies that help rebuild the economic stability of America's workers, especially those of our "fragile middle class," through enhanced asset-building strategies and a stronger commitment to quality jobs.

At the Surdna Foundation, we believe that such a comprehensive approach is necessary if we want to achieve greater economic resilience. We recognize that such fundamental changes to how we view and invest in our economy and our workforce will take time but see this approach as essential to fulfilling our mission to build strong local economies that are just and sustainable.

For more information about our approach to our grantmaking, please review our grant guidelines.

[1] Signs of Healing in the Labor Market though Unemployment Remains High, Economic Policy Institute.