Unemployment Rate in the United States decreased to 4.10 percent in June from 4.20 percent in May of 2025. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Unemployment Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

This dataset contains unemployment rates for the U.S.(1948 - Present) and California (1976 - Present). The unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed as a percentage of the labor force. Labor force data are restricted to people 16 years of age and older, who currently reside in 1 of the 50 states or the District of Columbia, who do not reside in institutions (e.g., penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged), and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces. This rate is also defined as the U-3 measure of labor underutilization.

The number of unemployed persons in The United States decreased to 7015 Thousand in June of 2025 from 7237 Thousand in May of 2025. This dataset provides - United States Unemployed Persons - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Context

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System. The BLS is a governmental statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to the American public, the U.S. Congress, other Federal agencies, State and local governments, business, and labor representatives. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

Content

Bureau of Labor Statistics including CPI (inflation), employment, unemployment, and wage data.

Update Frequency: Monthly

Querying BigQuery Tables

Fork this kernel to get started.

Acknowledgements

https://bigquery.cloud.google.com/dataset/bigquery-public-data:bls

https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/bureau-of-labor-statistics

Dataset Source: http://www.bls.gov/data/

This dataset is publicly available for anyone to use under the following terms provided by the Dataset Source - http://www.data.gov/privacy-policy#data_policy - and is provided "AS IS" without any warranty, express or implied, from Google. Google disclaims all liability for any damages, direct or indirect, resulting from the use of the dataset.

Banner Photo by Clark Young from Unsplash.

Inspiration

What is the average annual inflation across all US Cities? What was the monthly unemployment rate (U3) in 2016? What are the top 10 hourly-waged types of work in Pittsburgh, PA for 2016?

The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the population that is either employed or unemployed (that is, either working or actively seeking work). People with jobs are employed. People who are jobless, looking for a job, and available for work are unemployed. The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force.

Context

This is a dataset that I built by scraping the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was looking for county-level unemployment data and realized that there was a data source for this, but the data set itself hadn't existed yet, so I decided to write a scraper and build it out myself.

Content

This data represents the Local Area Unemployment Statistics from 1990-2016, broken down by state and month. The data itself is pulled from this mapping site:

https://data.bls.gov/map/MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u

Further, the ever-evolving and ever-improving codebase that pulled this data is available here:

https://github.com/jayrav13/bls_local_area_unemployment

Acknowledgements

Of course, a huge shoutout to bls.gov and their open and transparent data. I've certainly been inspired to dive into US-related data recently and having this data open further enables my curiosities.

Inspiration

I was excited about building this data set out because I was pretty sure something similar didn't exist - curious to see what folks can do with it once they run with it! A curious question I had was surrounding Unemployment vs 2016 Presidential Election outcome down to the county level. A comparison can probably lead to interesting questions and discoveries such as trends in local elections that led to their most recent election outcome, etc.

Next Steps

Version 1 of this is as a massive JSON blob, normalized by year / month / state. I intend to transform this into a CSV in the future as well.

Context & Content

This dataset consists of the unemployment rate and education level of adults in the USA by county. That is, for each county in the USA, this dataset provides the count and percentage of unemployed adults as well as the count and percentage of adults of various educational backgrounds. Each county was been assigned one of four locale categories (City, Suburb, Town, Rural) according to its 2013 Urban Influence Code and their descriptions provided in UIC_codes.csv. From the descriptions of each of the codes and the descriptions of the locales "City", "Suburb", "Town", and "Rural" provided on page 2 of the locale user manual (locale_user_manual.pdf), each county was assigned one of four locales.

The unemployment rate data includes the count and percentage of unemployed adults for each county in the USA for each year from 2000-2020. The median household income for 2019 is also included. The education level data includes the count and percentage of adults with less than a high school diploma, a high school diploma only, some college, and a bachelor's degree/four years of college or more for the years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2019. The Urban Influence Code data includes the UIC and locale description of each county in the USA and the locale user manual has been included as a PDF as strictly a reference file, to understand how each county was assigned a locale within the unemployment.csv and education.csv files.

Data Sources

Source for the unemployment rate and education level data by county: "County-level Data Sets." USDA Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture. Access date: Sept 8, 2021. URL: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-level-data-sets/

Source for Urban Influence Codes by county: "Urban Influence Codes." USDA Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture. Access date: Sept 8, 2021. URL: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/urban-influence-codes/#:~:text=The%202013%20Urban%20Influence%20Codes,to%20metro%20and%20micropolitan%20areas.&text=An%20update%20of%20the%20Urban,is%20planned%20for%20mid%2D2023.

Inspiration

This dataset was created to be used as an additional data source for the LearnPlatform COVID-19 Impact on Digital Learning Kaggle competition, but is suitable for other analyses related to unemployment rate and education level in the USA.

Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States decreased to 62.30 percent in June from 62.40 percent in May of 2025. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Labor Force Participation Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

2020 data excluded because the U.S. Census Bureau did not release 2020 ACS 1-year estimates due to COVID-19. Some racial and ethnic categories are suppressed to avoid misleading estimates when the relative standard error exceeds 30%.

Data Source: American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Estimates

Why This Matters

Employment is the main source of income for most people. For many families and individuals, unemployment threatens access to basic needs, such as food, housing, transportation, health care, and education, among others.

Nationally, Black workers and workers of color, on average, experience persistently higher unemployment rates than white workers. Racist policies and practices, including segregation, employment discrimination, and inequities in the criminal justice system have undermined job security for workers of color.

The District's Response

Initiatives that support residents in career advancement and their efforts to secure sustainable employment through education and training support, such as Career MAP, Advanced Technical Centers (ATC), and the DC Infrastructure Academy, among other programs and services.

Administering federal and local safety net programs that provide temporary cash and health benefits to help residents experiencing unemployment and related economic hardship meet their basic needs, including unemployment insurance, Medicaid, TANF For District Families, SNAP, etc.

Programs to remove barriers employment for returning citizens, such as Pathways to Work and the Returning Citizens Access to Jobs Grant.

The employment and unemployment indicator shows several data points. The first figure is the number of people in the labor force, which includes the number of people who are either working or looking for work. The second two figures, the number of people who are employed and the number of people who are unemployed, are the two subcategories of the labor force. The unemployment rate is a calculation of the number of people who are in the labor force and unemployed as a percentage of the total number of people in the labor force.

The unemployment rate does not include people who are not employed and not in the labor force. This includes adults who are neither working nor looking for work. For example, full-time students may choose not to seek any employment during their college career, and are thus not considered in the unemployment rate. Stay-at-home parents and other caregivers are also considered outside of the labor force, and therefore outside the scope of the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate is a key economic indicator, and is illustrative of economic conditions in the county at the individual scale.

There are additional considerations to the unemployment rate. Because it does not count those who are outside the labor force, it can exclude individuals who were looking for a job previously, but have since given up. The impact of this on the overall unemployment rate is difficult to quantify, but it is important to note because it shows that no statistic is perfect.

The unemployment rates for Champaign County, the City of Champaign, and the City of Urbana are extremely similar between 2000 and 2023.

All three areas saw a dramatic increase in the unemployment rate between 2006 and 2009. The unemployment rates for all three areas decreased overall between 2010 and 2019. However, the unemployment rate in all three areas rose sharply in 2020 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unemployment rate in all three areas dropped again in 2021 as pandemic restrictions were removed, and were almost back to 2019 rates in 2022. However, the unemployment rate in all three areas rose slightly from 2022 to 2023.

This data is sourced from the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS), and from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Sources: Illinois Department of Employment Security, Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

1990 to present (approximate 2 month lag) Virginia Labor Force and Unemployment estimates by Month by County.

Special data considerations: Period values of "M01-M12" represent Months of Year; "M13" is the Annual Average.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Local Area Unemployment Statistics, table la.data.54.Virginia Data accessed from the Bureau of Labor Statistics public database LABSTAT (https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/la/)

Supporting documentation can be found on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website under Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Handbook of Methods (https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/lau/home.htm)

Survey Description: Labor force and unemployment estimates for States and local areas are developed by State workforce agencies to measure local labor market conditions under a Federal-State cooperative program. The Department of Labor develops the concepts, definitions, and technical procedures which are used by State agencies for preparation of labor force and unemployment estimates.

These estimates are derived from a variety of sources, including the Current Population Survey, the Current Employment Statistics survey, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, various programs at the Census Bureau, and unemployment insurance claims data from the State workforce agencies.

To establish uniform labor force concepts and definitions in all States and areas consistent with those used for the U.S. as a whole, monthly national estimates of employment and unemployment from the Current Population Survey are used as controls (benchmarks) for the State labor force statistics.

Summary Data Available: Monthly labor force and unemployment series are available for approximately 7,500 geographic areas, including cities over 25,000 population, counties, metropolitan areas, States, and other areas.

For each area, the following measures are presented by place of residence:

• Total civilian labor force,
• Total number of people employed,
• Total number of people unemployed, and
• Unemployment rate

Data Characteristics: Rates are expressed as percents with one decimal place. Levels are measured as individual persons (not thousands) and are stored with no decimal places.

Employment Rate in the United States remained unchanged at 59.70 percent in June. This dataset provides - United States Employment Rate- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the active labour force (i.e. employed and unemployed).

Content

2018 unemployment rate in percent, per county in the USA.

Acknowledgements

This data was downloaded on March 23, 2019 from GeoFRED https://geofred.stlouisfed.org/map/?th=rdpu&cc=5&rc=false&im=fractile&sb&lng=-90.000&lat=40.028&zm=5&sl&sv&am=Average&at=Not%20Seasonally%20Adjusted,%20Monthly,%20Percent&sti=1224&fq=Annual&rt=county&un=lin&dt=2018-01-01

How Can I Use the Data? In https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred_terms.html states that: "As long as you don’t engage in a prohibited/restricted use and do adhere to any applicable copyright restrictions, you are free to use FRED for your own non-commercial, educational, and personal uses."

Unemployment Rate in China decreased to 5 percent in May from 5.10 percent in April of 2025. This dataset provides - China Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The US Family Budget Dataset provides insights into the cost of living in different US counties based on the Family Budget Calculator by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

This dataset offers community-specific estimates for ten family types, including one or two adults with zero to four children, in all 1877 counties and metro areas across the United States.

Interesting Task Ideas:

1. See how family budgets compare to the federal poverty line and the Supplemental Poverty Measure in different counties.
2. Look into the money challenges faced by different types of families using the budgets provided.
3. Find out which counties have the most affordable places to live, food, transportation, healthcare, childcare, and other things people need.
4. Explore how the average income of families relates to the overall cost of living in different counties.
5. Investigate how family size affects the estimated budget and find counties where bigger families have higher costs.
6. Create visuals showing how the cost of living varies across different states and big cities.
7. Check whether specific counties are affordable for families of different sizes and types.
8. Use the dataset to compare living standards and economic security in different US counties.

If you find this dataset valuable, don't forget to hit the upvote button! 😊💝

Checkout my other datasets

Employment-to-Population Ratio for USA

Productivity and Hourly Compensation

130K Kindle Books

900K TMDb Movies

USA Unemployment Rates by Demographics & Race

Photo by Alev Takil on Unsplash

This dataset contains information about the unemployment rate in Austin (SD23 measure EOA.A.1). Texas Workforce Comission provides Texas Labor Market Information for Austin, the Austin Round-Rock MSA, Texas, and the United States.

This dataset includes the average number of people in the civilian labor force, the employment count, the unemployment count, and the unemployment rate for Austin, the Austin Round-Rock MSA, Texas, and the United States. The unemployment rate can be useful in understanding economic and workforce trends in Austin over time.

View more details and insights related to this dataset on the story page: https://data.austintexas.gov/stories/s/Percentage-Unemployment-Rate/ehhu-nafn/

This data set indicates how many people employed in Cambridge are covered by the unemployment insurance compensation system, the number employed by economic sector, and how much these workers earn.

The data covers the work force in Cambridge, regardless of their place of residence, and are taken from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, ES-202 Series based on the requirements set forth in the Massachusetts Employment Security Law (1967 to present) and the Compensation for Federal Employees Law (1980 to present). Note that the unemployment compensation system does cover all workers, excluding groups such as the self-employer, religious workers and some domestic workers.

This data set assigns workers to sectors using the the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. Since 2001, only the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code system is used to assign workers to sectors. Older, historic data is available in the open data set "Cambridge Workforce By Industry: 2001 - Present". The 2001 figures summarize the same raw data but are recoded to NAICS there.

Unemployment Rate in Canada decreased to 6.90 percent in June from 7 percent in May of 2025. This dataset provides - Canada Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

BY USING THIS WEBSITE OR THE CONTENT THEREIN, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF USE.A spatial representation of the locations of Michigan UIA Problem Resolution Offices (PRO).Data Source: PRO Locations

Problem Resolution Offices - Need Help?The UIA's Problem Resolution Offices (PROs) resolve customer problems and provide access to automated resources.PROs provide:Telephones and computers for the convenience of customers who may not have access to a computer or telephone to file their claim. If you are going to file an unemployment claim at a PRO, please bring: Your Social Security Number, your Driver's License Number or State Identification or your MARVIN PIN (if you have one); along with the names and addresses of employers you have worked for in the past 18 months with your quarterly gross earnings and the last date of employment with each employer. If you are not a U.S. citizen or national, you will need your Alien Registration Number and the expiration date of your work authorization.In-person help for problems with claimsA presence in the community that includes, on request, presentations about unemployment insurance services to employer, business, labor, and community groupsFile at a PRO: If you are going to file an unemployment claim at a PRO, please bring:Your Social Security Number, your Driver's License Number or State Identification or your MARVIN PIN (if you have one)If you are not a U.S. citizen or national, you will need your Alien Registration Number and the expiration date of your work authorization.Names and addresses of employers you have worked for in the past 18 months including quarterly gross earnings and the last date of employment with each.