The state of the economy is a well-known story these days and the unemployment rate is just one indicator of the trouble.  Unemployment rates linger around 8.3 percent (as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] on March 9 for February 2012).  The number of long-term unemployed (classified as those unemployed for 27 weeks or more) remained unchanged in February, hovering at 5.4 million people (approximately 43 percent of the total unemployed).