This excerpt originally appeared in NBC Politics on May 31, 2012.

“People who lose their jobs often take jobs that pay less than the job they had,” said Jason Fichtner, the former chief economist for the Social Security Administration who is now a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “The lower wage tends to result in a level downward shift in lifetime wages … the longer it takes them to find a job, the greater their lifetime wage gap is likely to be. This not only has implications for financing Social Security, but also for financing all government spending. If wages are lower, then taxes collected will be lower too (all else being equal).”