The latest US unemployment rate is out. The official figure stands at 9.7%I'm not sure if unemployment figures count those incarcerated in prison as part of the rate, so I'll just make some estimates.
Summary table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted, states the following:
(numbers in thousands)
Civilian noninstitutional population 236,998
Civilian labor force 153,512
Participation rate 64.8%
Employed 138,641
Unemployed 14,871
U-3 Unemployment rate 9.7%
U-6 Unemployment rate 16.8%
According to the DOJ, there were 2,304,115 people either in prison or in jail at the end of 2008. There are no updated figures since 2008 so we'll have to assume a static prison population. Also note that the number in prison or in jail does not take into account those on probation or on parole, as these people would be considered part of the "noninstitutional population" that makes up the employment figures.
So let's add the 2.3 million prisoners to the figures above.
Civilian population 239,302
Civilian labor force 155,816
Participation rate 65.1%
Employed 138,641
Unemployed 17,175
U-3 Unemployment rate 11.0%
U-6 Unemployment rate 19.1%
I measured U-3 as (number of unemployed) ÷ (civilian labor force) x 100
I measured U-6 based upon the original figures, namely that the U-6 rate is 1.731958763 the size of the U-3 rate.
Of course, those figures assume no addition to the prison population since 2008, so they would be classed as a statistical minimum while the actual result would be a few percentage points higher.
No comments:
Post a Comment