Stigma Of Long-Term Unemployment Boosts Jobless Rate: CBO

"Regardless of its initial cause, unemployment in general and long-term unemployment in particular can lead to subsequent difficulties for the affected workers," the CBO says. "One mechanism by which unemployment reduces future employment prospects is through the stigma attached to long-term unemployment -- that is, an employer's inference that people who have been unemployed for a long time are low-quality workers."

Explaining the source of unemployment stigma, CBO cited hearings by the Equal Opportunity Commission that examined discrimination against the jobless. Starting in 2010, employers' inferences that the unemployed make poor workers manifested repeatedly as job advertisements with conditions like "must be currently employed." Such ads received so much negative attention that in 2011, Democrats in Congress, along with the Obama administration, proposed new laws banning discrimination against the jobless.