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The country has been trying to recover from the Great Recession for three years. But the U.S. job market remains weak, leaving roughly five million workers unemployed for a year or more.

The Kaiser Family Foundation teamed with NPR to conduct a survey, seeking to describe the experiences of those long-term unemployed workers. Here are some highlights of the survey findings.

The long-term unemployed tended to be low-wage workers.

One late January night in 1966, President Johnson went to the Capitol to deliver the annual State of the Union address.

Johnson was at the peak of his power that night, and during the hourlong speech, he talked about his agenda for the year: Vietnam, social programs and expanding the war on poverty. But right in the middle, he offered up an idea that seemed to come out of nowhere when he proposed to change the term for a congressman from two years to four, concurrent with presidential terms.

Robert Griffin III is the first Baylor player to ever win the Heisman. In a year full of scandals in college sports, the win for Griffin — a dean's list student and son of two retired Army sergeants — delivers a much-needed shot in the arm to the public image of the NCAA, says Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation.

Jerry Robinson, creator of Batman's iconic enemy the Joker, died this week at 89. Guy Raz has this appreciation.

The vast, untapped natural gas reserves in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale are the subject of much debate. Scientists who are trying to shed light on the safety of drilling are facing a host of obstacles, including lack of funding and data. Susan Phillips Scientists who are trying to shed light on the safety of drilling are facing a host of obstacles.

Judging by the attacks on Newt Gingrich at Saturday's GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa, the former House speaker is the man to beat in the Republican presidential field.

The past few weeks have seen a remarkable turnaround for Gingrich's campaign. It wasn't long ago when his bid was all but left for dead. This summer, nearly his entire campaign staff resigned on a single day. One of those staffers was Gingrich's longtime communications aide Rick Tyler.

Tyler explains that he left because he lost perspective, but is now open to rejoining Gingrich's campaign.

All 17 nations that use the Euro have agreed to integrate their fiscal policies and give the European Union more control over their national budgets. Germany was the prime mover behind this push for greater fiscal discipline. Some are saying the agreement, in effect, unites Europe under German control. Host Audie Cornish speaks with NPR's Sylvia Poggioli in Rome.

America's biggest trade partner, Canada, sailed through the economic downturn almost unscathed, with low unemployment, no mortgage crisis and not a single major bank failure. As part of WBEZ's Front and Center series, Brian Mann reports on how Canada emerged as one of the world's most stable and prosperous economies.