Measures aim to end bias against long-term jobless, By Shelly Banjo, February 24, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “More than a dozen states are considering legislation to make it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed. State lawmakers say they see the bias turning up in a nation with an 8.3% unemployment rate: Companies that explicitly advertise that they won’t hire someone who isn’t currently employed. The proposals from Connecticut to California range in scope from banning advertisements that require current employment to allowing unsuccessful job candidates to sue businesses under the same discrimination laws that apply to bias on the basis of religion, race, gender or national origin. The efforts come as the percent of the long-term unemployed-people looking for work for more than six months-has consistently topped 40% since December 2009, when it broke that threshold for the first time since 1948, the year such data began being collected…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty