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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Measuring Unemployment – Detroit, MI

Nearly half of Detroit’s workers are unemployed, By Mike Wilkinson, December 16, 2009, Detroit News: “Despite an official unemployment rate of 27 percent, the real jobs problem in Detroit may be affecting half of the working-age population, thousands of whom either can’t find a job or are working fewer hours than they want. Using a broader definition of unemployment, as much as 45 percent of the labor force has been affected by the downturn. And that doesn’t include those who gave up the job search more than a year ago, a number that could exceed 100,000 potential workers alone…”