Unemployment and Poverty

This article looks at the relationship between unemployment and poverty for the period 1967-75. Looking at individuals in households, we find that the number of persons living in poverty would have been reduced by about 10 percent if all unemployment of household heads had been eliminated. Focusing on male household heads, we find that among prime-age men, the working poor were almost twice as likely as other workers to become unemployed and, when unemployed, the poor lost twice as large a fraction of their expected ten-year work time and labor income.