Data Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Employment of Persons Releases from Federal Prison in 2010, Table 5, and Congressional Research Service, Unemployment Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic. (Graph: Leah Wang, 2022)

This graph originally appeared in New data on formerly incarcerated people’s employment reveal labor market injustices.

As the data show, not only is reentry difficult in the first months of release from prison, but the struggle to find a job actually grew over time for the study cohort of people leaving federal prison in 2010. We show these increasing jobless rates next to one of the most dire economic moments of recent years — when the US unemployment rate reached its highest point of around 15% in mid-2020.