Official Unemployment Rate For November Remains At 5.0%

The Labor Department has released its unemployment statistics for the month of November. It shows that 211,000 new jobs were created in November. Unfortunately, they didn't even completely cover the number of new entrants into the job market (273,000), so the official unemployment rate remained mired at 5.0%. That makes the fourth month that the unemployment rate was in the 5.1% to 5.0% range.

It may be very hard to get the rate down below 5.0% (let alone down into the 3.0% to 4.0% range that is defined as full employment). The economy is still struggling to keep up with new job seekers, and the Republicans still oppose all efforts to change our economic policy (to a fairer policy that will benefit all Americans and boost the economy).

Here are the relevant statistics for November:

SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:

157,301,000

OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

7,937,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

5.0%

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE (DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN):

Adult men...............4.7%
Adult women...............4.6%
Teenagers (16-19)...............15.7%
Whites...............4.3%
Blacks...............9.4%
Hispanics...............6.4%
Asians...............3.9%
Less than HS diploma...............6.9%
HS graduate...............5.4%
Some college...............4.4%
Bachelor's degré or more...............2.5%

MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS (Official count + marginal-attached, who are no longer counted because they didn't look for work in last 4 weeks):

9,654,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

6.14%

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

6,086,000

NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED/UNDEREMPLOYED WORKERS:

15,740,000

UNEMPLOYMENT/UNDEREMPLOYED RATE:

10.01%