2007 Employment Characteristics of Families — 2008-05-30

In 2007, the share of families with an unemployed member was 6.3 per- cent, little changed from the prior year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The proportion of fam- ilies with an unemployed member remained lower than the recent peak of 8.1 percent in 2003. Of the nation�s 77.9 million families, the propor- tion that had at least one employed member was little changed in 2007 at 82.6 percent. These data on employment, unemployment, and family relationships are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sam- ple survey of approximately 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. In 2007, 4.9 million families had at least one member who was unemployed, unchanged from 2006.