OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT: 9.7% [Analysis]
A year earlier, the number of unemployed persons was 12.7
million, and the jobless rate was 8.2 percent. [BLS]

White 8.8%
African American 15.8%
Hispanic 12.4%
Asian** 8.4%
Persons with a disability ** 13.8%
Men 20 years and over 10.0%
Women 20 years and over 8.0%
Teen-agers (16-19 years) 25.0%
Black teens 42.0%
Officially unemployed 14.9 million

HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT Working part-time because can’t find a full-time job: 8.8 million
People who want jobs but are not looking so are not counted in official statistics (of which about 2.5 million** searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available for work during the reference week.) 6.2 million
Total: 29.9 million (18.7% of the labor force)
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

**Not seasonally adjusted.
*See Uncommon Sense #4 for an explanation of the unemployment measures.

In addition, millions more were working full-time, year-round, yet earned
less than the official poverty level for a family of four. In 2008, the latest
year available, that number was 17.8 million, 17.1 percent of full-time, full-year workers (estimated from Current Population Survey, Bur. of the Census, 2009).

In January, 2010, the latest month available, the number of job
openings was only 2.7 million, a slight improvement over December, according to the BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Estimates, March 9, 2010.+ Thus there are now 11 job-wanters for each available job.[Numbers are not comparable with previous months as methods have been revised.]