The Official Unemployment Rate Remains Steady at 5.8%

The Labor Department has released their official statistics for November, and at first glance, they look good. About 321,000 jobs were created in November. But three things combined to make sure that didn't lower the official unemployment rate, which remained steady at 5.8%. They are a 119,000 increase in the size of the labor force, a 115,000 increase in the number of people the government counts as unemployed, and about 100,000 more people who have given up trying to find a job (and are no longer counted by the government -- even as being marginally-attached to the labor force).

I would love to think this fairly steady drop in the number of officially unemployed will continue (the rate for November 2014 is 1.2% lower than in November 2013), but the 2014 election will probably prevent that. We can expect them to try to institute even more austerity measures by cutting programs that help hurting Americans (which will slow economic growth and job creation), while giving more to the rich (which will have no effect on the economy). We need to get the official unemployment rate below 5% at a minimum (and 3%-4% would be even better), but that is unlikely to happen before the 2016 election.

Here are the relevant statistics for November 2014:

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES OF DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS:

Adult men...............5.4%
Adult women...............5.3%
Teenagers (16-19)...............17.7%
Whites...............4.9%
Blacks...............11.1%
Hispanics...............6.6%
Asians...............4.8%
Less than HS diploma...............8.5%
HS graduate...............5.6%
Associate's degree (or some college)...............4.9%
Bachelor's degree or higher...............3.2%

SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN LABOR FORCE:

156,397,000

OFFICIAL COUNT OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

9,110,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

5.8%

NUMBER OF WORKERS MARGINALLY-ATTACHED TO WORK FORCE (no longer counted as unemployed because they didn't look for work in the last 4 weeks -- and probably an undercount):

2,109,000

MORE REALISTIC COUNT OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

11,219,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

7.17%

NUMBER OF UNDEREMPLOYED WORKERS (working part-time because they can't find full-time work):

6,850,000

NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED / UNDEREMPLOYED WORKERS:

18,069,000

UNEMPLOYMENT / UNDEREMPLOYMENT RATE:

11.55%