The unemployment rate for former prisoners is nearly five times higher than the unemployment rate for the general U.S. population, and substantially higher than even the worst years of the Great Depression, says a new report from the Prison Policy Institute. This indicates “extensive economic exclusion” for ex-inmates, the institute says. Formerly incarcerated people want to work. Their high unemployment rate reflects public will, policy, and practice, the institute says. The inequalities persist even when controlling for age. Among working-age individuals (25-44 in this dataset), the unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people was 27.3 percent, compared with just 5.2% unemployment for their general public peers.