Every month when the Department of Labor announces the unemployment rate, it makes front page news in papers nationwide. That means it must be illustrated, preferably with an eye-catching photo that will sell papers. One of the iconic images from the Great Depression was that of the breadlines, with men in overcoats (or at least non-casual-looking clothes) queued up solemnly. Newspaper editors and photographers would like to give a nod to these images.

The problem is that there aren’t a whole lot of lines generated by economic woes these days. Your unemployment checks are either mailed to you or direct deposited in your bank account. Food stamps often come in the form of electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards. These are all fairly massive advances in customer friendly government service, but that’s a different matter. The point is, if you want to illustrate rising unemployment with a photo of a line of reasonably well-dressed people (preferably in overcoats, preferably a reasonable number of men), you have to find such a situation. Where do you look?

Career fairs! I swear, every article on unemployment has been illustrated with a photo of people lining up to enter a career fair. The obvious question, of course, is whether there were lines to enter career fairs when the economy was good as well. I suspect so — there are always new grads and people looking for new jobs in our high-churn economy — but no one ever started snapping their photos until unemployment rose about 6%.