How Job Loss Frays Communities

Lose Your Job, Lose Contact With Your Community
Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune: "Two troubling trends have reshaped the lives of Americans over the past few decades: Our jobs are less secure, and we are less likely to participate in social and community groups. A first-of-its-kind study suggests these phenomena are linked. Analyzing decades of data, sociologist Jennie Brand of the University of California, Los Angeles and Sarah Burgard of the University of Michigan found workers who have been laid off even once are 35 percent less likely to be involved in community or social organizations than workers who have never lost a job under those circumstances. "