The next recession will be harder than it needs to be. Here’s why.

  Recessions are hardest on those who can least afford it.

  Take the Great Recession, the economic plunge that followed the 2008 financial crisis. It cost those in the poorest 10 percent of Americans more than 20 percent of their incomes, which was more than twice the drop experienced by the richest 10 percent. It was black and Hispanic workers, as well as workers who didn’t have a college degree, who saw higher rates of unemployment and longer durations without a job than other workers.

  Overall, the recession exacerbated already existing inequalities in wealth and income, with black and Hispanic families, as well as women, falling further behind their white, male counterparts in terms of asset building.

  And the next recession could be even harder.

Adam Hersh: Bad policy choices, not bad weather, restraining job growth

  Employment growth rebounded in February, according to last week's employment situation report (PDF) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, proving economists wrong—people can actually work in the cold and snow. The U.S. economy added 175,000 new jobs in February, and revised figures show job growth averaging just 129,000 jobs per month over the past three months.

  Job growth is trending in the right direction, although still short of what is needed to return the U.S. labor market to full employment or drive real wage gains in the near future. The unemployment rate overall crept up one notch to 6.7 percent as more people returned to the labor force, but the number of people employed relative to the overall population remained unchanged.

Sarah Ayres: Why Congress must extend emergency unemployment benefits

  Since 2008, federal lawmakers have provided extra weeks of unemployment benefits for Americans who want a job but cannot find one—a group that totals 11.3 million people today. Recognizing that unemployment rates have remained high since the start of the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, Congress has repeatedly enacted legislation to extend these benefits. Under the most recent extension, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, emergency unemployment benefits will expire at the end of 2013. But extending emergency unemployment benefits will prevent 3.1 million Americans from being cut off from benefits in the coming months and will lead to the creation of 310,000 additional jobs next year. Maintaining these benefits is the right thing to do for the U.S. economy and for the families who rely on unemployment insurance to pay their bills.