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In August, the unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.1 percent), whites (8.9 percent), and Hispanics (13.0 percent) rose in August.
The jobless rates for adult women (7.6 percent) and blacks (15.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for teenagers (25.5 percent) was also little changed over the month.
The unemployment rate for all workers rose by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7 percent in August. The rate had been little changed in June and July, after increasing 0.4 or 0.5 percentage point in each month from December 2008 through May. Since the recession began in December 2007, the unemployment rate has grown by 4.8 percentage points.
These data are from the Current Population Survey and are seasonally adjusted. More information can be found in "The Employment Situation – August 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-09-1067.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Unemployment rate demographics, August 2009 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/ted_20090904.htm (visited October 31, 2024).