The longer someone has been out of work, the more severe the financial impact on them and their families. Prior to my retirement, if I had ever been out of work for that long I'd have had to make some extremely difficult choices – such as whether to keep my house, or keep my retirement savings. For the many two-income families these days, having one spouse unemployed for that long means a big reduction in income, but perhaps less than ruinous. For single-income families (like ours), it would be worse...
I suspect a lot of this is a result of the extensions of unemployment insurance rather than the severity of the recession. The median isn't moving that much, it's the mean, which suggests that most people are getting back to work in roughly the usual amount of time, but some people are taking maximum advantage of the benefits congress is ladling out. http://www.shadowstats.com/charts/employment/unemployment/unemployment-duration
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