unemployment

With a decade of falling unemployment behind us, memories fade as to what actually happens during recessions. Those who have been working for a decade or less have never experienced a recession. It hurts. Forty years later, I can still remember being fired at age 22 from a summer job in a copper smelter when the demand for copper turned down. It was not a serious blow economically, but I can recall every detail. While there …

…remember that what led to your being unemployed, and what makes re-employment difficult, is not your personal performance, but the characteristics of the system. The failures, to the extent that there are failures, lie in the system and not in you. I know. I've been there. Lester C. Thurow, a professor of economics and former dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributor