AUGUST 2015 Unemployment Data — the Full Count*
(U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS)
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT: 5.1%*
White: 4.4%
African American: 9.5%
Hispanic: 6.6%
Asian**: 3.5%
Persons with a disability**: 10.2%
Men 20 years and over: 4.7%
Women 20 years and over: 4.7%
Teens (16-19 years): 16.9%
Black teens: 31.3%
Officially unemployed: 8.0 million
*If the LFPR were at its pre-recession level, the unemployment rate in August 2015 would have been 7.2% instead of 5.1%. [See “The Labor Force Participation Rate and Its Trajectory”]
HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT
Working part-time because can’t find a full-time job: 6.5 million
People who want jobs but are not looking so are not counted in official statistics (of which about 1.8 million** searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available for work during the reference week.): 5.9 million
Total: 20.4 million (12.5% of the labor force)
Source: http://www.bls.gov/