Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor said the nation's unemployment rate in February was 8.1 percent, the highest jobless rate since 1983. It was higher than most experts predicted it would be.
The government said, "Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has risen by about 5 million and the unemployment rate has risen by 3.3 percentage points."
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said non-white workers were hit even harder. Unemployment for:
- Whites 7.3%
- Blacks 13.4%
- Hispanics 10.9%
- Asians 6.9%
- Teens 21.6%
Nearly three million Americans are now considered to be "long-term unemployed," meaning they have been without work for 27 weeks or more.
The new report out this morning says construction, manufacturing, retail, leisure and hospitality, transportation (including trucking), information (including media) all lost lots of jobs in February. The one bright spot is health care, which continues to add jobs.
The February data:
In PerspectiveHigh school and college students who graduated into the job market in the last deep recession in 1983 would now be in their 40s. It would be interesting to talk to these folks, then talk to current college or high school seniors. How did those 1983 graduates find work? What do the new graduates plan to do? By way of background, the situation was even worse in
1982, when the jobless rate reached 9.7 percent.
Here is a graph that shows unemployment and recessions charted together.
Some very useful charts and data:
Where to call for expertiseHere is a a breakdown of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics media offices by region:
Not a DepressionThese new unemployment figures may tempt journalists to draw parallels to
the Great Depression, but what we face as a country today is not the same.
In 1930 the jobless rate was 8.7 percent. By 1931, the jobless rate was 15.9 percent. By the time the recovery began in 1933, unemployment was at 24.9 percent.
During the Great Depression, more than half of all Americans were living below a minimum subsistence level. Between 1929 and 1932, the Gross National Product dropped a stunning 31 percent. Farm prices fell more than 50 percent in the same period. International trade all but shut down, dropping 66 percent in three years.
How does the government know who is jobless? It is not an exact science, or a headcount.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides some background:
Some people think that to get these figures on unemployment, the government uses the number of persons filing claims for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits under State or Federal government programs. But some people are still jobless when their benefits run out, and many more are not eligible at all or delay or never apply for benefits. So, quite clearly, UI information cannot be used as a source for complete information on the number of unemployed.
Other people think that the government counts every unemployed person each month. To do this, every home in the country would have to be contacted—just as in the population census every 10 years. This procedure would cost way too much and take far too long. Besides, people would soon grow tired of having a census taker come to their homes every month, year after year, to ask about job-related activities.
So, how does the government make the count? It does it in the form of a survey, sort of like a big public opinion poll:
There are about 60,000 households in the sample for this survey. This translates into approximately 110,000 individuals, a large sample compared to public opinion surveys which usually cover fewer than 2,000 people.
The CPS sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States. In order to select the sample, all of the counties and county-equivalent cities in the country first are grouped into 2,025 geographic areas (sampling units). The Census Bureau then designs and selects a sample consisting of 824 of these geographic areas to represent each State and the District of Columbia. The sample is a state-based design and reflects urban and rural areas, different types of industrial and farming areas, and the major geographic divisions of each State. (For a detailed explanation of CPS sampling methodology, see
Chapter 1 of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Handbook of Methods.)
Who's counted as unemployed, and who isn't? Some who do not have jobs are not counted as unemployed; if they're not looking for work, they're not considered part of the "labor force."
As the Bureau of Labor Statistics explains, people with jobs are "employed
." People can also be considered employed if they have completed at least 15 hours of unpaid work per week in a family-owned enterprise run by someone in their household. People who are on leave from their jobs because of an illness, vacation or other personal reasons are also counted as employed. Even a worker who is on strike but who worked part of the pay period is counted as such. If you have two jobs, you are considered employed in both places.
People who are jobless, have looked for a job within the past four weeks or who are available for work are considered "unemployed." If they stop looking for a job, they'll fall out of the unemployed category and become part of the category described below.
People who are neither employed nor unemployed are considered "not in the labor force." For example, a homemaker or a retiree would not be in the workforce. Neither would a person who lives in jail, a nursing home or a mental care facility.
On Thursday, the labor department reported:
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Feb. 14 were in Michigan (8.2 percent), Oregon (7.3), Idaho (7.1), Pennsylvania (6.7), Wisconsin (6.5), Rhode Island (6.2), Alaska (6.0), Nevada (6.0), Montana (5.8), and Puerto Rico (5.8).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Feb. 21 were in Illinois (+3,791), Massachusetts (+3,438), Missouri (+3,027), Ohio (+2,731), and California (+2,677), while the largest decreases were in Florida (-3,586), Virginia (-3,490), New York (-3,420), Michigan (-3,373), and New Jersey (-2,266).
