A Picture of Unemployment Throughout the Pandemic

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. We took a look at unemployment and long-term unemployment by age to see how the economic changes brought on by the pandemic have impacted different age groups.

As shown in the first figure, young adults (18-24) faced the highest unemployment rates at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, and today, they have much higher unemployment rates than other age groups. The second figure shows long-term unemployment, where older age groups are more likely to have been unemployed for over 26 weeks. Notably, the share of unemployed individuals who are experiencing long-term unemployment is on the rise for all age groups.

Unemployment in the US
Long-term unemployment in the US

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