HBO Doc Takes a Hard Look at the Long-Term Unemployment Crisis
The director of 'Hard Times: Lost on Long Island' discusses his
film.   "We hear about the budget gaps, the deficits, and the
debt. If anything there's a compassion deficit," says director
Marc Levin speaking to U.S. News about his documentary Hard
Times: Lost on Long Island. The film, which premieres on HBO
Monday at 9:00, seeks to do just that, giving a face and voice
to the millions of jobless Americans—particularly the long-term
unemployed.  Levin focuses his camera on Levittown, N.Y, a Long
Island white collar community outside of New York City that was
the poster child of upward middle-class mobility a half century
ago. The manicured lawns and modest colonial-style houses are
now haunted by middle-age professionals—corporate financiers,
public relations representatives, teachers, and doctors—who have
lost their jobs or seen a serious cut in pay in the wake of the
Great Recession.  "You look at the homes, you look at the cars,
you look at th