U.S. Unemployment Rate Rises By 0.1% In February

The Labor Department released their official employment numbers for February yesterday, saying the number of unemployed workers and the unemployment rate were "changed little in February". They must have been looking at their numbers through rose-colored glasses though, because the fact is that both the number of unemployed workers and the unemployment rate rose last month.

The official unemployment count rose by 223,000 (from 10,236,000 in January to 10,459,000 in February), and the official unemployment rate grew by 0.1% (from 6.6% in January to 6.7% in February). One reason for this was a rise in the size of the civilian workforce of 264,000 (from 155,460,000 in January to 155,724,000 in February) -- significantly surpassing the number of new jobs created.

The Republicans will never admit it, but their severe budget-cutting (austerity) is hurting the economy by removing money from it. This decreases demand for goods/services and suppresses new job creation. The struggling economy can't even take care of the millions of unemployed workers, let alone create jobs for a growing workforce.

Here are the relevant statistics for February:

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT
Adult men...............6.4%
Adult women...............5.9%
Teenagers (16-19)...............21.4%
Whites...............5.8%
Blacks...............12.0%
Hispanics...............8.1%
Asians...............6.0%
Less than HS grad...............9.8%
HS grad...............6.4%
Some college...............6.2%
Bachelor's degree or more...............3.4%

SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORKFORCE

155,724,000

OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS

10,459,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

6.7%

NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS

2,303,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBER (marginally-attached + official)

12,762,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

8.2%

UNDEREMPLOYED (part-time because full-time work not available)

7,186,000

UNEMPLOYMENT/UNDEREMPLOYMENT RATE

12.8%