Part 2: The demographics of the unemployed:
Bottom Line: The demos of the unemployed tell a much more instructive story about what's really going on in our labor market. As I do monthly, here are the government reported unemployment rates and my adjusted rate based on demographics:
Asians: 3.7% (up)
White: 4.3% (down)
Hispanic: 5.9% (up)
Black: 7.7% (down)
Here are the adjusted rates:
Asians: 7.2%
White: 8.4%
Hispanic: 11.6%
Black: 15.1%
While we saw the unemployment rate actually increase for Asians and Hispanics in January, the good news is that the best progress made by any group was with regard to black adults - where the most progress is needed. This marks three out of four months in which the best improvement in unemployment has come with black adults and hopefully we can continue that trend going forward. We continue to see the importance of accounting for the long-term unemployed, underemployed and marginally employed in these demographic breakouts. We also see the continued importance of having demographic breakouts. How much distance is there between the base government unemployment rate of 4.8% and the real unemployment rate for Hispanics at 11.6% and Black adults at 15.1%?
In the third part of today's story we'll explore how much money we're making...