Nonprofit Site Makes Vivid Long-Term Impact of Joblessness

The Urban Institute’s 27 Weeks and Counting Web site puts its data on unemployment in perspective. The Urban Institute’s 27 Weeks and Counting Web site puts its data on unemployment in perspective.

September 22, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute

When researchers at the Urban Institute studied the problem of long-term unemployment, the Washington think tank published a series of reports. But it also created an engaging new Web site, 27 Weeks and Counting, to explore the topic.

The Web site conveys, in multiple ways, what researchers have learned. For example, an interactive graphic shows what share of the unemployed has been out of work for six months or longer, from the late 1940s until today. The Web site reveals that in 2010 the share of those unemployed over the long term peaked at more than 45 percent, in contrast to about 25 percent during the worst period of the 1980s recession.

The Web site also features interviews, videos, and photo slide shows that tell the stories of four people who have been out of work for six or more months.

“We had four pieces of good but dense research,” says Dave Connell, director of digital communications at the think tank. “We really wanted to take the issue of long-term unemployment and put a human face on it and put a narrative to it.”

To get there: Go to urban.org.

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About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.