United States unemployment rate

• What is unemployment insurance?
• Terms and definitions
  • Unemployment insurance
  • Unemployment insurance fraud
  • Unemployment insurance fraud recovery
  • Federal unemployment tax
  • State unemployment tax
  • Employment taxes
  • Payroll taxes
  • Unemployment tax wage base
  • Unemployment Trust Fund
  • State Unemployment Trust Funds
  • Employment Security Administration Account
  • Extended Unemployment Compensation Account
  • Federal Unemployment Account
  • Indexing unemployment benefits
  • Experience rating
  • Refusal of work
  • Integrity Data Hub
  • Unemployment extension
  • Work search activity
  • Unemployment insurance overpayments
• Court cases
  • Steward Machine Co. v. Collector of Internal Revenue
  • Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Company
  • Meilink v. Unemployment Reserves Commission of State of California
  • Sherbert v. Verner
  • Nash v. Florida Industrial Commission
  • California Department of Human Resources Development v. Java
  • Geduldig v. Aiello
  • Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory
  • New York Telephone Co. v. New York Department of Labor
  • Califano v. Westcott
  • Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division
  • United States v. Lee
  • Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Commission of Florida
  • Frazee v. Illinois Department of Employment Security
  • Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith
• Unemployment insurance in the states
• Reform proposals related to unemployment insurance
• Unemployment insurance reform activity in the states
• Index of articles about unemployment insurance

The national unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed people as a percent of the labor force (the total number of employed and unemployed individuals). The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) classifies people as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for a job in the past four weeks, and are available for work—or if they are waiting to be recalled to a job from which they were temporarily laid off.

National unemployment rate

National unemployment rate by month

The chart below shows data for the national unemployment by month from 1998 to 2025. It is updated each month.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting monthly unemployment data in 1948. Click here to access the full range of data.

Note: Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique to eliminate the influence of predictable seasonal labor force trends such as harvests, major holidays, and school schedules, from data. According to the BLS, "These seasonal adjustments make it easier to observe the cyclical, underlying trend, and other nonseasonal movements" in monthly unemployment data. Click here for more information.

BLS Methodology

Unemployment insurance
• Terms and definitions • Court cases • Unemployment insurance programs in the states • Reform proposals related to unemployment insurance • Reform activity in the states related to unemployment insurance • Index of articles about unemployment insurance
Click here for more coverage of unemployment insurance on Ballotpedia

The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses data from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the United States Census Bureau. The survey collects data each month from 60,000 households—approximately 110,000 individuals—selected from a sample of 800 geographic areas designed by the Census Bureau to represent each state and the District of Columbia. The Census Bureau limits interviewing one household to four consecutive months in a 12-month period for two years in a row, at which point the household is removed from the sample.

According to the BLS, "The chances are 90 out of 100 that the monthly estimate of unemployment from the sample is within about 300,000 of the figure obtainable from" a national census and "the possible error resulting from sampling is not large enough to distort the total unemployment picture."

See also

• U.S. Department of Labor
• Economic indicators by state
• State employment rates by citizenship status

External links

• United States Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Bureau of Labor Statistics National unemployment rate
• Bureau of Labor Statistics Labor force characteristics
• United States Bureau of Economic Analysis
• FRED Economic research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis