Depression/Unemployment

Unemployment: By the numbers

March 7, 2009



People unemployed in February 2009, the most since records dating to 1948

12.1 million:

People unemployed in December 1982, the previous record

154.2 million:

size of workforce in February 2009

111.1 million:

size of workforce in December 1982
New record-highs at all education levels (all records dating from 1992)

4.1%:

Unemployment rate for college graduates

8.3%:

Unemployment rate for high school graduates

12.6%:

Unemployment rate for those with no high school diploma
Underemployed workers

8.6 million:

Number of part-time workers who would have preferred full-time work last month, the most on records dating to 1955

2.1 million:

People who wanted to work, were available and had looked in the last 12 months, but had not looked in the last month

14.8%:

Unemployment rate including involuntary part-time workers and those who hadn't looked in 12 months, the highest on records dating to 1994
Those still working

60.3%:

Portion of the total population that had jobs in February

February 1986:

Last time the portion was this low
February unemployment rate by group

8.1%:

Adult men

6.7%:

Adult women

10.3%:

Female heads

of households

6.9%:

Asians

7.3%:

Whites

10.9%:

Hispanics

13.4%:

Blacks

21.6%:

Teenagers
Steve's take
I am not convinced the above article is about truth rather it seems to be about creation of an idea, the idea our unemployment problem to day is horrible. The article mentions "the most unemployed since 1948".(I don't put a lot of faith in statistics), check this out, in 1948 there was an unemployment rate of 3.9% out of a population of 146,000,000. Associated Press claims the number of unemployed (not percentage) is the greatest since 1948. How can this be since our population today is over 300,000,000 and we are at 8% unemployment. Our population had doubled since 1948 so why wouldn't the unemployment double as well? Actually I don't think we have a big problem an unemployment rate, below 5% is considered full employment, we are at 8%. This is high but not as high as when Jimmy Carter was president and we survived the prime rate was 22% and we couldn't buy gasoline.
The media is scaring everyone into a depression.
Steve