This brief compares the characteristics of the long-term unemployed with those of the recently unemployed. It also compares the long-term unemployed today with the long-term unemployed at the height of the recession to identify workers for whom the risk of long-term unemployment has increased. Older workers, women, and those with more education are less likely to become unemployed than other workers but, once they become unemployed, they are disproportionately more likely to experience long-term unemployment. In addition, older workers, women, and unmarried adults without children have made up increasingly larger shares of the long-term unemployed since the recessions end.