Feature Stories Campus Events All Stories

Schroeder Speaks to Unemployment on PBS

Viewers of “PBS Newshour” might have seen a familiar face last Friday, when Washington and Lee alumna Ingrid Schroeder, of the Class of 1991, provided expert commentary on the United States’ high jobless rate.

As director of the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts, Ingrid led the Pew study “A Year or More: The High Cost of Long-Term Unemployment.” It was released in 2010, and an addendum was published last month.

Appearing on the program with Catherine Rampell, an economics reporter for the New York Times, Ingrid said that the update to their original study looked at the third quarter of 2011 and found that “31.8 percent of people who are unemployed have been jobless for a year or more. That’s a historic high, a rate that we haven’t seen since the end of World War II. And just to put it in a little bit of perspective for you, it’s about 4.4 million people, roughly the population of Louisiana. So, it is still a significant problem.”

You can watch Ingrid’s appearance and read a transcript at the PBS site here.

Ingrid, a member of the Williams School Advisory Board, received her master of public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Prior to joining Pew, she was a senior executive service branch chief at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Legislative Reference Division. During 17 years at OMB, she also served as a program examiner with the Housing Treasury and Finance Division with the Treasury Branch, as well as a legislative analyst handling Justice and Treasury issues.

If you know any W&L alumni who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.