U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee

Employment and Economy

The 2011 Economy:

This year was characterized by only modest progress in the recovery of labor markets.  Since the end of 2010, the unemployment rate has dropped by 0.8 percentage point, with some of that decline resulting from discouraged workers dropping out of the labor force rather than obtaining jobs. Long-term unemployment remains one of the defining characteristics of the recovery, with over forty percent of unemployed workers having been jobless for at least six months.