Current Population Survey · Unemployment rates and U-1 to U-6, seasonally adjusted
What is the US unemployment rate for each group and each official measure?
The month ended : of the 18 lines, the change over a year was largest for Prime-age men, up 0.2 percentage points, and smallest for U-6 (plus part time for economic reasons), down 0.5 percentage points.
Unemployment rate by group, official measures, each month
- U-11.81.1 to 5.1
- U-21.91.5 to 13.2
- U-34.23.4 to 14.8
- U-44.43.7 to 15.1
- U-55.04.2 to 16.0
- U-67.66.6 to 22.9
Unemployment rate by group, married and prime-age, each month
- Married2.11.8 to 11.1
- Married men2.11.7 to 9.6
- Married women2.11.9 to 13.1
- Prime-age, 25 to 543.62.9 to 12.8
- Prime-age men3.72.8 to 12.1
- Prime-age women3.42.8 to 13.7
Unemployment rate by group, reason, time and hours, each month
- Job leavers0.40.3 to 0.6
- Reentrants1.30.9 to 1.5
- New entrants0.50.2 to 0.6
- Unemployed 27 weeks or more1.10.6 to 2.6
- Full-time workers4.13.4 to 12.9
- Part-time workers4.53.6 to 24.3
Each row is one line of the page over the last ten years, one month to a point, on a scale shared by the rows of the tab, with its newest value and its range printed beside it and a dashed line at zero. A gap is a month with no value. Pointing at the chart shows the month and the value.
Observed .
Right now
Over a year to September 2026, of the 18 lines on this page the change was largest for Prime-age men, up 0.2 percentage points, and smallest for U-6 (plus part time for economic reasons), down 0.5 percentage points.
Of these lines, 1 rose, 13 fell and 4 did not change over the year (ours, from the published values).
By lineOver a year, ours
Unemployment rate by group, change over a year, by line
- Official measures
- Married and prime-age
- Reason, time and hours
Each bar is the change in one line over a year, the largest first, with its rank at the left and its newest value under the figure. A line with its own page links it from its name. A change below zero runs to the left of the zero line. The colour says which section of the page a line is in.
Observed .
Unemployment rate by group, change over a year in each month
| Line | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U-1 | – | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.1 | +0.3 | +0.2 | −0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 |
| U-2 | – | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.1 | −0.2 |
| U-3 | – | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | +0.1 | −0.2 | −0.2 | −0.2 |
| U-4 | – | +0.5 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.2 | 0.0 | +0.2 | +0.1 | 0.0 | −0.1 | −0.2 | −0.3 |
| U-5 | – | +0.4 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.1 | −0.1 | −0.2 | −0.4 |
| U-6 | – | +1.0 | +0.8 | +0.6 | −0.1 | +0.1 | +0.4 | +0.3 | +0.2 | 0.0 | −0.4 | −0.5 |
| Married | – | +0.2 | 0.0 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.2 | −0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.1 | −0.1 | −0.2 |
| Married men | – | +0.3 | −0.1 | +0.2 | 0.0 | +0.1 | −0.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.3 | −0.2 |
| Married women | – | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.6 | +0.4 | +0.5 | +0.2 | −0.1 | +0.1 | −0.2 | 0.0 | −0.2 |
| Prime-age, 25 to 54 | – | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.4 | +0.4 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.1 |
| Prime-age men | – | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.2 | 0.0 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.5 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.2 |
| Prime-age women | – | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +0.4 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.2 | −0.2 | −0.2 | −0.4 |
| Job leavers | – | 0.0 | −0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | +0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.1 |
| Reentrants | – | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −0.1 |
| New entrants | – | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | +0.1 | +0.1 | +0.1 | −0.2 | −0.1 | 0.0 |
| Unemployed 27 weeks or more | – | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.3 | +0.1 | −0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Full-time workers | – | +0.4 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.2 | +0.1 | +0.1 | 0.0 | +0.1 | −0.2 | −0.2 | −0.3 |
| Part-time workers | – | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.6 | +0.7 | +0.1 | +0.4 | +0.3 | −0.2 | −0.1 | −0.4 | 0.0 |
Each chip is one month's change from the same month a year earlier. The mark in its middle is zero: a fill to the right of it is a rise and a fill to the left a fall. A longer, brighter fill is a larger change, in five steps up to 0.4 and over. Every chip prints its figure and sign. A dash is a month with no figure.
Observed .
Understanding unemployment by group
Where it stands today
The largest change over a year was Prime-age men, up 0.2 percentage points, in September 2026.
What do the lines of this page measure?
These are the unemployment rates of groups that the unemployment rate page does not show (it shows age, sex, race and education), and the six official measures of unemployment, U-1 to U-6. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates them each month from the Current Population Survey, a survey of households, and publishes them in the Employment Situation report.
Read more
The groups are married people and people of prime working age, 25 to 54; people unemployed because they left a job, returned to the labor force or entered it for the first time; the long-term unemployed; and full-time and part-time workers. The six measures widen or narrow who counts as unemployed: U-3 is the headline rate on the unemployment rate page, and U-6 is the broadest.
What 500metrics adds: the change over a year of every line, ranked across the page; the last ten years of every line as rows of small charts; and a table of the change over a year in each of the last twelve months. Lines with a link have a page of their own with the history since the series begins.
The numbers behind the chart
What is the latest value of each line?18 lines, in the sections of the page
| Line | Section | Month | Value | Change over a year | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U-1: 15 weeks or more | Official measures | 1.8% | 0.0 pts | 2 | |
| U-2: job losers | Official measures | 1.9% | −0.2 pts | 9 | |
| U-3: all unemployed | Official measures | 4.2% | −0.2 pts | 9 | |
| U-4: plus discouraged workers | Official measures | 4.4% | −0.3 pts | 14 | |
| U-5: plus marginally attached | Official measures | 5.0% | −0.4 pts | 16 | |
| U-6: plus part time for economic reasons | Official measures | 7.6% | −0.5 pts | 18 | |
| Married | Married and prime-age | 2.1% | −0.2 pts | 9 | |
| Married men | Married and prime-age | 2.1% | −0.2 pts | 9 | |
| Married women | Married and prime-age | 2.1% | −0.2 pts | 9 | |
| Prime-age, 25 to 54 | Married and prime-age | 3.6% | −0.1 pts | 6 | |
| Prime-age men | Married and prime-age | 3.7% | +0.2 pts | 1 | |
| Prime-age women | Married and prime-age | 3.4% | −0.4 pts | 16 | |
| Job leavers | Reason, time and hours | 0.4% | −0.1 pts | 6 | |
| Reentrants | Reason, time and hours | 1.3% | −0.1 pts | 6 | |
| New entrants | Reason, time and hours | 0.5% | 0.0 pts | 2 | |
| Unemployed 27 weeks or more | Reason, time and hours | 1.1% | 0.0 pts | 2 | |
| Full-time workers | Reason, time and hours | 4.1% | −0.3 pts | 14 | |
| Part-time workers | Reason, time and hours | 4.5% | 0.0 pts | 2 |
The table scrolls sideways; the first column stays in place.
What do these figures leave out, and how are they cited?Limits, dates and how to cite
What this number cannot tell you
- Every rate comes from a survey of households, so each month's value carries sampling error, and the error is larger for small groups such as reentrants and new entrants. BLS's technical note in the Employment Situation gives its size.
- Each rate is a share of its own base: the labor force of its group, or, for U-1 to U-6, the civilian labor force with the people BLS adds for U-4 to U-6. A line is not a part of another line.
- BLS seasonally adjusts the rates and revises the adjusted values of the past five years each January.
- October 2025 has no value because BLS did not collect the survey that month; the charts show a gap there.
- The changes and the ranks are ours, worked out from the values BLS publishes; a change is in percentage points.
Observed . Checked .
How to cite this
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Unemployment rates and U-1 to U-6, seasonally adjusted, through September 2026. Compiled by 500metrics, "What is the US unemployment rate for each group and each official measure?", https://500metrics.com/unemployment-by-group.
Can the data be downloaded?unemployment-by-group.csv
Download the last ten years of every line as CSV: 2,160 rows, to , 123,986 bytes.
Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0.
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