April 21, 2004 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Families and unemployment, 2003
In 2003, 8.1 percent of families had an unemployed member, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the prior year. This was the third consecutive year this measure
rose.
[Chart data—TXT]
In an average week in 2003, 6.1 million families had at least one unemployed member, up from 5.8 million families the year before. The proportion of black families with an unemployed member (13.7 percent) was higher than the proportion of white families (7.1 percent), Asian families (9.4 percent), and Hispanic families (11.1 percent).
Of the 6.1 million families with at least one unemployed member, 70.5 percent also had an employed family member. Asian families with unemployment were most likely to have at least one member employed (82.7 percent), followed by white families (73.6 percent), Hispanic families (70.1 percent), and black families (57.3 percent).
These estimates are based on annual average data from the Current Population
Survey. See Employment Characteristics of Families in
2003 (PDF) (TXT),
news release USDL 04-719, for more information. Data for 2003 reflect revised population controls used in the Current Population Survey. Estimates for the above race groups (white, black or African American, and Asian) do not sum to totals because data are not presented for all races. In addition, persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race and, therefore, are classified by ethnicity as well as by race.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
.
Read more »
