“The longer you are unemployed, the more stigma is attached,” said Carl Van Horn, the founding director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
Black people and older Americans are more likely to find themselves among the long-term unemployed, he said, a group that includes people out of work for more than six months. Age discrimination, particularly against women over 40, has been documented in several studies.
“There are very limited remedies in this country to deal with these issues,” Van Horn said. Cash assistance runs out, and there are few retraining opportunities. He noted that a lot of higher education assistance, like Pell grants, do not pay for short-term training, which is what many people lacking a particular skill could benefit from.
New York Times, October 31, 2019