What happens when the jobless give up?
unemployment_jobs_2.ju.top.jpg By Nina Easton, senior editor-at-
large  FORTUNE -- What happens to a nation's collective psyche
when millions of once-productive people remain out of work for
months or even years? What happens when unemployed husbands
resign themselves to relying on a wife's income, when unemployed
wives feel trapped at home, when twenty- and thirtysomethings
calculate that they'd rather live off their parents than face a
cut-throat job market, when middle-aged men and women stop
searching for jobs after realizing they're hopelessly lost in a
haze of rapid-fire technological change?  The pre-holiday
bickering over tax cuts and extending unemployment benefits is
drowning out a December government number so frightening it
should concentrate the minds of every posturing political leader
in Washington: 9.8% unemployment. That is staggering, up from
when the recession ended 18 months ago, and comes despite signs
of recovery in retail, real estate, and corporat