2008 Employment Characteristics of Families — 2009-05-27

The share of families with an unemployed member rose from 6.3 percent in 2007 to 7.8 percent in 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The proportion of families with an unemployed member in 2008 neared the recent peak of 8.1 percent in 2003. Of the nation's 77.9 million families, 82.2 percent had at least one em- ployed member in 2008, down by 0.4 percentage point from 2007. 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. There were 6.1 million families with at least one unemployed member in 2008, up from 4.9 million in 2007.