What If They Held A Congressional Committee Meeting On Unemployment And (Almost) Nobody Came?

Attaturk at FDL tells the story, as reported at McClatchy. It seem several big-name economists were going to testify that unemployment was a crisis (du-uh)... here's McClatchy's Kevin G. Hall:

Testifying before the Joint Economic Committee, the economists, who’ve served both Democratic and Republican presidents, said the elevated percentage of long-term unemployed people among those counted as jobless underscored deeper problems in the labor market.

So the congressional committee jumped right on it, did they? Attaturk found the answer at, of all places, National Journal, which also has a pic of the nearly-empty committee room:

When a hearing to explore how to get the long-term unemployed back to work kicked off on Wednesday morning, only one lawmaker was in attendance. That was Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who was holding the hearing in her role as the vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee. The Joint Economic Commitee is one of a handful of committees whose members come from both parties and both houses of Congress. Klobuchar was eventually joined by three colleagues (in order of their appearance): Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Maryland Rep. John Delaney and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings. All four are Democrats.

"All four are Democrats." What a surprise!