Older Workers, the Great Recession, and the Impact of Long-Term Unemployment

Development of a research paper on older workers and long-term unemployment.

In 2010, the Heldrich Center prepared a research paper entitled Older Workers, The Great Recession, and the Impact of Long-term Unemployment for the Winter 2011 edition of Public Policy and Aging Report, a publication of the National Academy on an Aging Society, a policy institute of the Gerontological Society of America. The paper focused on the high rates of long-term unemployment among older job seekers during and after the Great Recession, including the devastating psychological and economic impacts of prolonged joblessness and high rates of pessimism about the future among these older workers. The paper was based on an analysis of the Heldrich Center’s Work Trends survey data of unemployed job seekers from November 2010.