Millions of people have been disconnected from the workforce, and possibly even from society.

The human disaster of unemployment

Kevin A. Hassett, Dean Baker

As unemployment increases in duration, prospects for the re-employment of older workers drop steadily. The result is nothing short of a national emergency. Millions of people have been disconnected from the workforce, and possibly even from society. If they are not reconnected, the costs to them and to society will be grim.

In 2007, before the Great Recession, people who were looking for work for more than six months — the definition of long-term unemployment — accounted for just 0.8 percent of the labor force. The recession has radically changed this picture. In 2010, the long-term unemployed accounted for 4.2 percent of the work force. That figure would be 50 percent higher if we added the people who gave up looking for work.

http://www.aei.org/article/economics/the-human-disaster-of-unemployment/