All of us are keenly aware of the immediate struggles we face because of the current economic downturn. I'm sure many of your families are facing excruciating choices that, even a few years ago, would have been unimaginable.

But what might be less appreciated is the long-term impact of this crisis -- on our economy, on our fiscal situation and on our future.

A new body of social science literature demonstrates that an economic downturn has a long-term impact on workers and their families. Consider the effect of what economists call an "exogenous labor shock" -- but normal people call a "lay-off" -- on the life course not of those laid off ... but on their children.

A range of studies have found that having a parent experience unemployment is significantly associated with whether you graduate from high school, whether you go to college, whether you get a job after college, and how much you get paid in that job. And the effect is persistent -- with higher high school dropout rates and lower college enrollment rates evident even years later.

Reflecting this, the children of workers who were once laid off have lower average wages as adults -- even decades later than those whose parents never experienced such setbacks.

And even if you or your parent didn't experience a layoff, the long-term repercussions of a recession are evident.

In other words, the impact extends to those not directly affected by unemployment -- by those entering the workforce for the first time ... the rising generation of workers. The adverse effect of entering the labor force during an economic downturn imposes a drag on career earnings that goes far beyond the duration of the recession itself.

One recent study, for example, found that graduating during a period of high unemployment leads to depressed initial wages -- roughly 6 percent on average for every 1 percentage point increase in unemployment. This negative wage effect declines only slowly over time: to 5 percent after five years, 4 percent after 10 years, and 3 percent even 15 years after graduation.

Remember, that's for each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate.

Another way of looking at it: when one compares the wages earned by the class of 1982 (a peak unemployment year) with the wages of the class of 1988 (a peak employment year) over the first 20 years of a career, the difference -- on a net present value basis -- averages $100,000.

The evidence thus suggests that the recession hits young people particularly hard, knocking them off course for years to come.

Now, let me highlight one bright spot.

Researchers also have found that so-called "recession graduates" are slightly more likely to go on to college or graduate school than counterparts in a boom year. In fact, the data suggest that community college enrollment has recently surged, pushing the overall college enrollment rate to record levels.

And this is good news because the evidence is clear: the more you learn, the more you earn.

The bottom line is that the administration and Congress did the right thing in forcefully responding to the current downturn: mitigating the depth and duration of the recession will help to lessen the extent to which its effects reverberate in the years ahead.

The other lesson is that we need to invest in the education and skills of the youngest members of our work force -- making sure that they do not slip off that crucial first rung of the career ladder and are able to quickly climb it as the economy recovers.

Peter Orszag is the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Originally published by Peter Orszag; McClatchy-Tribune News Service.

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