U.S. Unemployment Remains Steady At 5.5% For March

The Labor Department has released its unemployment statistics for the month of March. It shows that about 126,000 jobs were created in March -- about half the number of jobs in the previous month, and less than is needed to reduce unemployment further. The result is that unemployment remained steady at 5.5% (the same as in February).

Unemployment at 5.5%, while the lowest it's been in years, is not low enough. It needs to drop below 4% to be considered full employment, and millions of Americans remain out of work. Sadly, it may be tough to get the rate much lower. That's because the falling rate has not jump-started the economy -- and it has not done that because far to big a percentage of the new jobs are low-wage jobs (at or near minimum wage). And with the GOP in charge of both houses of Congress, it is very unlikely the minimum wage will be raised.

Here are the relevant numbers for March:

SIZE OF CIVILIAN WORKFORCE

156,906,000

OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS

8,575,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

5.5%

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

Adult Men...............5.1%
Adult Women...............4.9%
Teenagers (16-19)...............17.5%
Whites...............4.7%
Blacks...............10.1%
Asians...............3.2%
Hispanics...............6.8%
Less than HS diploma...............8.6%
HS graduates...............5.3%
Some college (or Associate's degree)...............4.8%
Bachelor's degree or more...............2.5%

NUMBER OF WORKERS MARGINALLY-ATTACHED (and no longer counted because they have looked for work in the last 4 weeks)

2,055,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBER (official + marginally-attached)

10,630,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

6.77%

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

6,705,000

NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED/UNDEREMPLOYED WORKERS

17,335,000

UNEMPLOYMENT/UNDEREMPLOYMENT RATE

11.05%