How unemployment hurts children and suppresses academic achievement

09-02-2011

Guest blog by Suzy Khimm/Washington Post

Unemployment casts a long shadow. It makes people sicker, makes it harder for them to get a new job and can depress their wages permanently even when they go back to work. But there are more indirect effects as well on the children of the unemployed, who may carry the impact of the current recession well into the next generation. A new study from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the proportion of children with at least one unemployed parent has more than doubled during the recession, rising from 5.0 percent in 2007 to 10.6 percent in 2010. (The national unemployment rate that year was 9.6 percent.) Children living in single-family households were even more likely to have an unemployed parent. The share of children in a family of a single, unemployed mother rose from 6.6 percent to 11.7 percent during the same time period. Those living in families with a single, unemployed father rose the most dramatically, from 5.7 percent to 14.4 percent. (more...)

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How unemployment hurts children and suppresses academic achievement

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