Unemployment Rate Rises For Second Month In A Row

The Labor Department has released its statistics for the month of January. They report that 304,000 jobs were created in January. That sounds like a lot, but it wasn't enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising again -- from 3.9% in December to 4.0% in January. Even though the civilian work force dropped by about 11,000, there were 241,000 more unemployed workers in January than in December.

Here are the relevant statistics for January:

SIZE OF CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:

163,229,000

OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

6,535,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

4.0%

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:

Adult men...............3.7%
Adult women...............3.6%
Teenagers (16-19)...............12.9%
Whites...............3.5%
Blacks...............6.8%
Hispanics...............4.9%
Asians...............3.1%
Less than HS grad...............5.7%
HS graduate...............3.8%
Some college...............3.4%
Bachelor's deg. or more...............2.4%

NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (Unemployed, but no longer included in official count):

1,614,000

MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

8,149,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

4.99%