OECD Warns Of 'Muted' Recovery Criticizes Congress For Allowing Unemployment Benefits To Lapse

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/07/oecd-unemployment-congress_n_638323.html

An international economic organization criticized the U.S. Congress on Wednesday for allowing extended unemployment benefits to lapse at the end of May, a move that thus far has denied more than 2 million Americans a critical lifeline during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

In its report on the global employment outlook, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development noted that a "particularly worrisome feature" of America's deep recession is the high number of workers who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Nearly half of the unemployed fall into this category, while more than 1 in 4 has been unemployed for longer than a year, the Paris-based OECD noted.

In the view of the OECD, "this group raises particular concerns for public policy," as the long-term unemployed "are at an elevated risk of falling into poverty" and "risk becoming permanently marginalized in the labor market."

"In this context, it is troubling that the temporary extension of unemployment benefits to last as long as 99 weeks has been allowed to expire," the report's authors wrote.