Who Are the Unemployed?

A new study released by the Employment Policy Foundation (Washington, DC) provides an interesting analysis of the composition of Americans who were unemployed in December 2001. In that month, the U.S. unemployment rate reached 5.8 percent and 8.3 million people were unemployed. The median duration of unemployment was 8.2 weeks. About 37 percent of the unemployed had been looking for jobs only five weeks or less, while 13.7 percent had been looking for more than 26 weeks, the time limit on regular unemployment benefits.

Generally speaking, the unemployed in December were young, childless and lacked a post-secondary school education. Highlights of the study include the following points:

• More than 44 percent of the unemployed are under 30

• Seventy percent of the unemployed have no children under the age of 18.

• Fifty percent of the unemployed have never been a parent, and only 34 percent are heads of families.

• Sixty-two percent of the unemployed have no education or training beyond high school.