From Vera:
In April 2023, the United States unemployment rate reached a 50-year low, registering at just 3.4 percent. Coming only a few years after the COVID-19 pandemic wrought a global economic crisis, this statistic should have been a major achievement. But behind this record low lies a hidden reality: nearly 2 million unemployed people are missing from the data.
The millions rendered invisible are people incarcerated in prisons and jails nationwide. Had they been counted, the unemployment rate would have grown more than a third—from 3.4 to 4.7 percent.
The systematic exclusion of incarcerated people from official employment statistics not only gives a false impression of the country’s economic well-being but also obscures the financial burdens shouldered by system-impacted families and households. Continue reading >>>
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