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Connor Caporicci
Mrs. Rogers
English 4
10/14/14
Unemployment in the United States
The unemployment rate is the amount of people without jobs that are looking for one.
The reason why the unemployment rate is looked at so carefully is because it tells us how well
our economy is. If the rate is rising then it means our economy is becoming weak. When the
rate is lowering it means our economy is getting stronger. They are many things that you have
to look at when talking about the unemployment rate. The first thing is how the present rate is
compared to rates in the past. The next is how the different states are affecting this
unemployment rate. The third is whether the unemployment rate is improving or not. The last
thing is there certain ages, or genders that are having a harder time finding jobs?
Threw out the history of the United States the unemployment rate has gone up and
down. The all-time highest unemployment was in November/December of 1982 and the lowest
was in June/July of 1953. The highest the country has seen was at 10.8 and the lowest was at
2.5. Right now, in 2014, the unemployment rate is lowering from its high in of 2009. It reached
a high of 10 and now it is at 5.9, dropping by a large amount of 4.1. As you can see by those
numbers todays unemployment is just about the average unemployment threw out the years.

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A few years ago we were in trouble with such a high unemployment rate, but we have been
able to gradually lower it. You can see this information for yourself by looking at this graph.

You can see that after each rise in the unemployment there is a drop. When you look from the
earlier years along to now to can tell that the drop goes less and less down. This means that
even though the unemployment is not rising higher and higher at its peak, over all it is getting
worst.
The total unemployment rate of the United States is affected by each of the states low
or high unemployment rate. The state that has the lowest amount of unemployment is North
Dakota, with the rate being at 2.8. The state with the highest unemployment is Georgia, and it
has an unemployment rate of 8.1. California is ranked 44th for the highest unemployment, and
our rate reaches 7.4.
There are things many things that are saying our unemployment situation is improving
and is not improving. The first thing is that the unemployment rate its self is lowering from its

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previous high at 10 in 2009, to now being at a low of 5.9. Another thing is that the
unemployment benefits have been dropping, and reach under 300,000. This is the first time
sense April of 2006 that the benefits have been that low. Obama said that sense the recession
has ended private businesses have created 10 million new jobs. Another sign that the
employment is getting better is the activity of houses being bought and sold. The National
Association of Realtors said that their index for pending home sales rose 3.3 percent in June,
this is a sign that the economy is getting better. The better the economy is the more jobs are
available. Some reasons how the unemployment rate can be looked at as not improving is,
many people have part time jobs that would like full time jobs but havent looked in a while.
This causes the unemployment rate to seem lower than it actually is. In 2000 many employers
were looking to hire people coming out of jail, because they needed more hands. Also in 2000
only 10% of people said it was hard to find jobs, compared to now where 31 percent of people
believe it is hard. Another thing that is making it hard to find jobs is that the minimum wage is
rising. With the minimum wage on the raise it is going to cause businesses to hire less people,
and even firing people they cannot afford to keep employed. This will cause the
unemployment rate to stay where it is and can even cause the rate to begin to rise. It is also
said that once the unemployment gets to low it will cause inflation. Right now the estimate is
at 6 percent, which means we already passed it. With the unemployment going too low for
economy to handle and the minimum wage raising it is setting up the United States economys
future for a crash. This could cause the unemployment rate to drop back again.
Another piece of information that is worrying many workers today is the discrimination
on age when trying to get a job. There have been accounts on both older and younger workers

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not being able to get jobs as easily as mid-aged workers. There have also been times when
older works with more still and education get laid off after working for a company for many
years. An example is Kevin Brady got fired at the age of 48 after working for Disney for 26 years,
and soon finds out his position was replace by a woman in her late 20s or early 30s. This is a
good example and worries many people that thought they were safe because theyve worked
with the company for many years. Also the unemployment rate for youth is rising from 12.8 in
April, to 13.6 now. This low is compared to the high of last year at 15.6. It is hard for youth to
find jobs that they need to get through school and even find jobs, once they have graduated.
Workers over the age of fifty are having even a harder time finding jobs. In the years 20082011 elder workers had a 20 percent harder time finding jobs than workers in their thirties. In
the past, the unemployment rate with men and women was different by a good percent. The
womans unemployment rate was always higher until about 1983. Now when we look at the
unemployment comparison of men and women it shows that womens rates, if not lower, are
equal to men. This shows a good change from before the 1980s when women would have a
harder time getting hired than men.
They are many things that you have to look at when talking about the unemployment
rate. The first thing is how the present rate is compared to rates in the past. When we look up
at the information comparing the past unemployment rates to the present ones things dont
seem to different. The present unemployment rate when it was at its peak did not reach the
previous heights back in 1982. Also just like it has in the past the rates are steadily dropping
from its peak. There is one major thing that is different from the rates in the past compared to
the rates today, and that is the level at which they start to rise again. If you look at the chart

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that is given in the first paragraph you can see that in the 80s the rates would drop but soon
come back up, not lowering to the levels they did in the past. If you look at todays chart you
can see that the levels are now lowering back to what they used to. This is making the whole
unemployment thing look more controllable and brighter for the future. The next is how the
different states are affecting this unemployment rate. There are 51 states, including the
District of Columbia, that are added up when determining the countrys overall unemployment.
Those states all have different rates, some being much lower than the countrys total, and
others being much higher. Depending on which state you live in the job hunt will be harder or
easier. So if you are having trouble finding jobs in California, which is the 44th worst state for
unemployment, you might what to search for jobs in the better states, like North Dakota and
Nebraska. The third is whether the unemployment rate is improving or not. There are many
views on the unemployment rates improvement right now. I believe that the unemployment in
the United States is improving at the time. We are coming down from a big unemployment
rate in 2009. The unemployment many not seem as good as it was many years ago, but right
now the unemployment is improving. Some people say that if the rates drop more it can cause
inflation, but I dont think it is the rates that are doing that, but more of the constant rise in
minimum wage. The last thing is there certain ages, or genders that are having a harder time
finding jobs? There are some problems with age discrimination in the work force, making it
harder for older and younger people to find jobs. The numbers say that it is true, with it being
the hardest for workers over the age of fifty to find jobs. Following that with younger people
having a next hardest time. The prime age group for getting jobs is in the ages of 30-40, and I
believe that its going to be that way for the future. Now there is no problem with females

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having a worst unemployment rate like it may have been in the past. The rates are pretty equal
to each other, and when one has the edge it leans to the females advantage. To close things
off I believe that the unemployment in the United States is improving.
Work Cited:
Unemployment rate from chart from 1948- 2014:
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet
Differences between womens and mens unemployment rates over the decades:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2006/nov/wk4/art02.htm
Unemployment Rates for States:
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
Disney sued for age discrimination by longtime executive:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-12/news/chi-disney-sued-for-age-discriminationby-longtime-executive-20140612_1_age-discrimination-discrimination-suit-brady
Employment and Unemployment Among Youth Summary:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm
Unemployment articles:
http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/unemployment-united-states
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/unemployment/index.html