We develop and estimate a general equilibrium search and matching model that accounts for key business cycle properties … unemployment benefits …

where aggregate shocks have a permanent effect on the unemployment rate. If agents' wealth decreases, the unemployment rate … increases for a potentially indefinite period. This makes unemployment rate dynamics path dependent as in Blanchard and Summers … (1987). I argue that this feature explains the persistence of the unemployment rate in the U.S. after the Great Recession …