the last book I ever read (Confidence Men, a book that presages Occupy Wall Street, sampled in five parts): sample five

from Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind:

For the 13.9 million unemployed as of January, the length of their joblessness, on average, was 36.9 weeks, the highest duration since the government began this measurement in 1948 and nearly twice as high as the most recent, comparably serious recession, in 1983, when it was 21.2 weeks. Understanding this group, and why it was so difficult to reduce their number, was on everyone’s mind, in both parties. Among Kreuger’s findings was that the amount of time devoted to job search declined sharply over the spell of unemployment; the exit rate from unemployment was low at all durations of joblessness, and declined gradually as time passed; and also, quite importantly, there was no rise in job search or job finding around the time unemployment benefits expired. This refuted a long-standing study—the centerpiece of public policy actions in handling the jobless and their benefits, for two decades—that recently won its coauthor the Nobel Prize.

But what struck Krueger, poring over the data in his office in late January, was how sad the unemployed were—sadder than data indicated the jobless had been in previous eras—and how they were particularly depressed during episodes of job search.

Economists have long been better at measuring misery than they are at measuring happiness, and the issues that push the unemployed into depression tend to be a complex brew, including a sense of whether society is fair, the length of a person’s joblessness, and how they see employment as identity. “Those without a job for an extended period of time seem to lose their identity,” Krueger said, “their sense of who they are, and the path they’ve chosen in life.”