Illustration of How Bad the Unemployment Situation Really is.

Economists will tell you that employment improves after the end of a recession. This chart illustrates that after every recession since World War II, the number of individuals suffering long-term unemployment went up before it started down. That has been the case consistently until the most recent recession that "ended" in late 2009.

This chart might cause you to ask a couple of questions. First, is all the stimulus spending working? And, second, is extending the number of weeks that individuals can collect unemployment helping? The answer to both questions seem to be "no."

A wise man said, "Encourage something, you get more of it, discourage something and you get less of it." It seems that by extending unemployment benefits we have encouraged people to stay unemployed longer and be less motivated to pursue employment.