Unemployment Went Down To 4.2% In June (In Spite Of Poor Job Creation)

Because of the holiday this weekend, the Labor Department released the June unemployment report a day early. The report showed the economy produced an anemic 57,000 jobs in June. That was not good, but the unemployed rate dropped from 4.3% to 4.2% anyway - mainly because the civilian workforce had 720,000 fewer workers (also not good).

Here are the relevant statistics for the month of June:

SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:

169,358,000

OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

7,094,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

4.2%

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:

Adult men...............3.9%

Adult women...............3.7%

Teens (16-19)...............14.6%

Whites...............3.6%

Blacks...............6.6%

Asians...............3.9%

Hispanics...............5.2%

NO HS diploma...............5.5%

HS graduate...............4.2%

Some college...............3.6%

Bachelor's deg. or more...............2.7%

NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (unemployed but no longer counted):

1,761,000

MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED (marginal-attached + official):

8,855,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

5.2%