How Long-Term Unemployment Decreases Life Expectancy

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 2, 2012 at 5:30 pm

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that more than 40 percent of America’s unemployed have been out of work for six months or more. The Associated Press reported recently that the long-term unemployed are facing increased hiring bias, with employers refusing to take on workers who have been out of work for a longer stretch of time.

There are several deleterious effects of long-term unemployment, but the New York Times’ Binyamin Applebaum highlighted a particularly harrowing one — increased mortality rates. According to a study by Columbia’s Till von Wachter and the Chicago Federal Reserve’s Daniel Sullivan, long-term unemployment can knock up to 18 months off of life expectancy: