OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT: 5.4%*

White	4.7%
African American	9.6%
Hispanic	6.9%
Asian**	4.4%
Persons with a disability**	10.0%
Men 20 years and over	5.0%
Women 20 years and over	4.9%
Teens (16-19 years)	17.1%
Black teens	27.5%
Officially unemployed	8.5 million

from the U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

*If the LFPR were at its pre-recession level, the unemployment rate in April 2015 would have been 7.3% instead of 5.4%. [See “The Labor Force Participation Rate and Its Trajectory”]

HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT

Working part-time because can’t find a full-time job:	6.6 million
People who want jobs but are not looking so are not counted in official statistics (of which about 2.1 million** searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available for work during the reference week.)	6.3 million
Total:  21.4 million (13.1% of the labor force)

Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf See also Current Employment Statistics–Highlights

**Not seasonally adjusted.
*See Uncommon Sense #4 for an explanation of the unemployment measures, and Is the Decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate During This Recession Permanent?.

In addition, millions more were working full-time, year-round, yet earned less than the official poverty level for a family of four. In 2013, the latest year available, that number was 18.5 million, 17.5 percent of full-time, full-year workers (estimated from Current Population Survey, Bur. of the Census, 9/2014).

Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

Unemployment Rate Vastly Understates Labor Market Weakness

Chartbook: The Legacy of the Great Recession Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

See Trends in long-term unemployment, Bureau of Labor Statistics slides