2009 Employment Characteristics of Families — 2010-05-27

The share of families with an unemployed member rose from 7.8 percent in 2008 to 12.0 percent in 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The proportion of families with an unemployed member in 2009 was at its highest le- vel since the data series began in 1994. Of the nation's 78.4 million families, 80.4 percent had at least one employed member in 2009, down by 1.8 percentage points from 2008. These data on employment, unemployment, and family relationships are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of ap- proximately 60,000 households. Families include married-couple families, as well as families maintained by a man or woman with no spouse present. For further information about the CPS, see the Technical Note. There were 9.4 million families with at least one unemployed member in 2009, up from 6.1 million in 2008.