How are workers who exhaust their unemployment benefits reflected in these figures?
Workers who exhaust their unemployment benefits get counted in different ways, depending on their employment circumstances. If they take new jobs very quickly, they will be counted as employed. If they keep looking for other kinds of work, they’ll be counted as unemployed. If they stop looking, or do something else—like go back to school or stay home and do child care—then they’re counted as being out of the labor force. Most workers who exhaust their benefits tend to keep looking for work and therefore end up among the unemployed. More workers have exhausted their unemployment insurance in this downturn than was true in previous downturns, since this one has gone on for so long. And, because the federal government has been slower to grant emergency extension benefits, the number who have exhausted their benefits and remain unemployed is well over two million at this point. 3. Minority women appear to be gaining in the labor force over minority men. What does this mean? There are diffe
