Families with unemployed members in 2009

Black and Hispanic families were more likely to have an unemployed member (17.4 and 16.9 percent, respectively) than were white (11.1 percent) and Asian (11.4 percent) families in 2009.

[Chart data]

Most families with an unemployed member also have at least one family member who is employed. Among families with an unemployed member in 2009, 68.6 percent also had an employed member, compared with 70.8 percent in 2008.

Among married-couple families with an unemployed member in 2009, 79.9 percent had an employed member, down from 82.5 percent in 2008. For families maintained by women (no spouse present) with an unemployed member, the proportion that also contained an employed member was lower in 2009 (46.1 percent) than in 2008 (49.1 percent). For families maintained by men (no spouse present), the proportion fell to 52.6 percent in 2009 from 57.3 percent in 2008.

The share of all families with an unemployed member rose from 7.8 percent in 2008 to 12.0 percent in 2009. The proportion of families with an unemployed family member in 2009 was at its highest level since the data series began in 1994.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "Employment Characteristics of Families — 2009," news release USDL-10-0721 (HTML) (PDF). A family is a group of two or more persons residing together who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption.