2012 Employment Characteristics of Families — 2013-04-26

In 2012, 10.5 percent of families included an unemployed person, down 1.0 percentage point from 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Of the nation's 80.1 million families, 80.0 percent had at least one employed member in 2012. These data on employment, unemployment, and family relationships are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of approximately 60,000 households. Data in this release are annual averages. Families are classified either as married-couple families or as families maintained by women or men without spouses present. Unless otherwise noted, families include those without children as well as those with children under age 18. For further information, see the Technical Note. The number of families with at least one member unemployed decreased to 8.4 million in 2012 from 9.0 million in 2011. The proportion of families with an unemployed member decreased to 10.5 percent in 2012.