We are getting good news on the economy and the labor market but are the statistics telling us the whole story? Even with a surge in hiring and a fall in the unemployment, there is a core of people who have been out of the labor market for a while and who are not being absorbed back in with the upswing in the economy. It is a problem that existed before the pandemic and which cannot be vaccinated away. To talk about what is going on and whether there are any policy fixes that might work, we are  joined today by Ofer Sharone, who is  Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst and an expert on the phenomenon of long term unemployment. Guest:  Ofer Sharone Associate Professor, University of Massachussetts, Amherst   Professor Sharone is a nationally recognized expert on long-term unemployment and the author of Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences (University of Chicago Press), which won multiple awards from the American Sociological Association.  His work has received wide attention from national media including the New York Times and the PBS Newshour, and he has been invited to participate in policy discussions at the White House and the Department of Labor....