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Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Them starting their graph at 2021 made me look up the actual data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS13025703

It's heavily cyclical for reasons I don't understand. It skyrocketed to 45% after the housing crash. It tends to peak in the low to mid 20s. We're currently at 25%. Definitely yellow journalism for now. And as for the article - if your parents name you Tequila, get a name change.

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Between 1950 and 2008 it briefly spiked above 20 six times total. Since 2008, the number never meaningfully fell below 20, staying in the 30-40 zone between 2008 and 2015, and then hovering between 20 and 25 since then. Yes, it's obvious that the status quo has changed.

IMO the reason is that there's simply more paper trail behind you. If you fall behind once, it's not like you can get your things, change name, and start a new life in another state.

> if your parents name you Tequila, get a name change.

I want to be named Charizard but my country doesn't allow name change.

What looks unusual in this graph is that the line usually spikes rapidly during and after a recession. It's not clear what we're in right now, since recessions are declared after the fact, but the slow trend upwards without a declared recession does look like a break from past decades.

It's different this time because the build-up since the last recession (excluding pandemic which didn't cause real recession but instead added more coal to the fire) has been the longest in history by far. Unless economists learned to prevent recessions, which is very unlikely, long build-up may mean spectacular crash. On the other hand, it may indicate that we are in a recession, hence the graph's similarities to 2007-2009 period, but it's just going to take a long time and then crash spectacularly, too. I am just speculating but it "feels" that way.

We've been in an economic recovery for 20 years now

I was about to post the same thing. It is cyclical, and over the last several decades, the percentage of long-term unemployed during low unemployment periods seems to have steadily increased more than the rate during high unemployment periods, covid excepting.

The level seems to be increasing, clearly, despite the cyclical components

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