One of the great blessings of my semi-charmed kinda' life (love that song!) is the Atlantic subscription my dear Grammy renews for me every year at Christmas. The quality of the writing reassures me that the battle is not lost; our world is not yet entirely post-literate. Hope persists. My Atlantic subscription is not an expense I could justify myself, even though it keeps me sane on some level.

Despite the bourgeois poseur tone of some articles, there is no disputing the quality. The depth of perspective is unmatched.

The March issue did not disappoint. If you are half as consumed by unemployment as a social issue as I am, you should read this. It provides a comprehensive view of the unemployment epidemic, though some details are blotched by upper-middle-class cluelessness. Just skip over all that stuff about the recession being technically over and "fears of financial apocalypse" having passed. Those of us with our boots in the mud know that this recession is not over, and we live in abject terror that the worst is yet to come. Other than those kinds of understandable (You try living your whole life in a bubble of privilege!) slips, this is as fine an article on the subject as I have read.

The long and short of it is that this is a long-term problem no matter what happens to the economy. It affects every aspect of our lives and leaves lasting scars.

One of the points explored was the effect of this recession on men (and women):

THE WEIGHT OF this recession has fallen most heavily upon men, who’ve suffered roughly three-quarters of the 8 million job losses since the beginning of 2008. Male-dominated industries (construction, finance, manufacturing) have been particularly hard-hit, while sectors that disproportionately employ women (education, health care) have held up relatively well. In November, 19.4 percent of all men in their prime working years, 25 to 54, did not have jobs, the highest figure since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the statistic in 1948. At the time of this writing, it looks possible that within the next few months, for the first time in U.S. history, women will hold a majority of the country’s jobs. (emphasis added)

One in five men in their prime working years is out of work. When I read that, all I could think of were the names of Korean friends: Ho Lee-Cow and his brother, Ho Lee-Sit.

Not mentioned in the article is another possible reason that men have been more likely than women to lose our jobs: We make more money. If you are a heartless corporation pulling employee information out of a database and axing the highest paid people in every department, more men than women will make your list. Remember: women still make only about 75 cents for every dollar men do for the same jobs. From a strict business perspective, it makes sense to get rid of those costly men and replace them with nice, inexpensive women.

The good news is that when the men lucky enough to find new jobs are finally re-hired at lower wages, the pay gap will be toast. See, there really is a silver lining in every cloud!

I enjoyed reading this article on my couch with my kitty reading along over my shoulder. He thought it was pretty good too. It's worth reading even without the full dead-tree reading experience.