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One jobless person in 20 percent of US families last year: Data

Wednesday, 29 April 2015 11:17 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 29 April 2015 11:18 AM ]

Unemployed and homeless people line up for a free meal and new shoes during a Good Friday event in Los Angeles, California on April 3, 2015.

More than 16 million American families, or about 20 percent, had at least one member who was unemployed last year, according to new government data.

In 2014, 19.9 percent of the nation's 80.9 million families included an unemployed person, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.

Families are classified either as married couple families or as families maintained by women or men without spouses present. Families include those without children as well as those with children under age 18.

The number of families with at least one member unemployed was 16,057,000 in 2014, the BLS said in its news release.

Members of families in which no one held jobs could have been either unemployed or out of the labor force. The BLS considers someone as not in the labor force if they did not have a job and were not actively seeking one.

The hardest hit racial group was African-American families. Their unemployment rate was 23.6 percent. For Hispanic families, it was 14.1 percent.

The unemployment rate for White American was 19.9 percent and for Asian families was 11.5 percent.

The US Labor Department said earlier this month that the US economy created the fewest number of jobs in March since December 2013, heightening concerns over the recent slowdown in economic growth.

The new report comes amid worries that the American economy is stalling following disappointing economic data.

A report to be released Wednesday is expected to show the US economy expanded at the slowest pace in a year. Gross domestic product grew 1 percent in the three months ending March 31, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

AHT/AGB

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