1999 Employment Characteristics of Families — 2000-06-15

In 1999, 83.1 percent of U.S. families had at least one employed member, up 0.5 percentage point from 1998, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Of the nation's 71.3 million families, 6.0 percent reported having an unemployed member, a decline of 0.4 percentage point from the previous year. These data on employment, unemployment, and family relationships are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 50,000 households. For further information about the CPS, see the Technical Note. In an average week in 1999, 4.3 million families had at least one member who was unemployed. Of these families with unemployment, 72.6 percent also contained at least one employed family member. Black families were more likely to have an unemployed member (10.6 percent) than either Hispanic (9.7 percent) or white families (5.3 percent).