2003 Employment Characteristics of Families — 2004-04-20

In 2003, 8.1 percent of families had an unemployed member, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the prior year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This was the third consecu- tive year this measure rose; in 2000, the proportion of families with an unemployed member was 5.7 percent. Of the nation's 75.3 million families, 82.0 percent had at least one employed member in 2003, down by 0.4 percentage point from 2002. 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 nationwide. Families include married-couple families, as well as those maintained by a man or a woman with no spouse present. For further information on the CPS, see the Technical Note. In an average week in 2003, 6.1 million families had at least one unem- ployed member, up from 5.8 million families the year before.