Unemployment Rate Is Stagnant At 7.6%

Some Democrats are celebrating the new job creation numbers, saying the 195,000 new jobs created in June shows the economy is moving forward. I wish I could join in that celebration, but the truth is that the economy is stagnant (with GDP showing only microscopic gains) and so is unemployment. The unemployment rate has remained in the 7.5%/7.6% range for four months now, and with the Republican-imposed austerity starting to have its real effects showing (taking money out of the economy and depressing demand for goods/services), it could be many months before we see a significant drop in unemployment.

The truth is that when you subtract the jobs lost from the jobs created, you find that only 160,000 more people went to work -- and that didn't even cover the number of new workers entering the workforce. The civilian workforce grew by 177,000 (rising from 155,658,000 in May to 155,835,000 in June). That means that the official number of unemployed people grew by 17,000 (from 11,760,000 in May to 11,777,000 in June). That's not a statistically large enough number to raise the official unemployment rate, but it's certainly not good news.

And the bad news doesn't stop there. The number of people labeled as "marginally-attached" to the workforce, because they have given up and not looked for work in the last four weeks, rose by about 418,000 (from 2,164,000 in May to 2,582,000 in June). The only reason this doesn't cause the unemployment rate to rise is because the government doesn't include these people in their official count of unemployed people. The number of people who are working part-time because they can't find full-time work also rose -- by about 322,000 (from 7,904,000 in May to 8,226,000 in June).

Here is the demographic breakdown of the official unemployment:
Adult men...............7.0%
Adult women...............6.8%
Teenagers...............24.0%
White...............6.6%
Black...............13.7%
Hispanic...............9.1%
Asian...............5.0%

And here are the relevant numbers for June.

Size of the civilian workforce:

155,835,000

Official number of unemployed workers:

11,777,000

Official unemployment rate:

7.6%

Number of "marginally-attached" unemployed (not counted in official numbers):

2,582,000

Real number of unemployed workers (probably an undercount):

14,359,000

Real unemployment rate (officially unemployed + marginally-attached):

9.2%

Number of underemployed (part-time workers seeking full-time work):

8,226,000

Number of unemployed/underemployed:

22,585,000

Unemployed/underemployed rate:

14.5% 

NOTE -- The unemployment rate for new veterans (those who have served since 2001) is now 7.2%, and the unemployment rate for all veterans in 6.3%. Those numbers are just as outrageous and unacceptable as the numbers above.