Employment and Income Data

The recession has increased joblessness among older Americans. These graphs and tables report unemployment rates and how they have varied by age, sex, race, and education since 2007.

The 2009 economic downturn that pushed up unemployment rates did not spare older workers. Unemployment rates reached record highs in 2009 for men and women age 55 and older. Older African Americans, Hispanics, and adults with limited education were especially likely to find themselves unemployed. Older adults who lost their jobs spent more time out of work than their younger counterparts. There were some encouraging developments, however. Employment rates for adults age 62 and older did not fall because many older workers stayed in the labor force, and earnings for full-time workers age 65 and older grew substantially.

Between 2007 and 2008, real incomes fell and poverty rose in the United States, Institute Fellow Harry Holzer testified before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Even if the recession ends this year, rising unemployment will mean that real income keeps falling while poverty increases for a few more years — and almost certainly by much more than occurred between 2007 and 2008. It will likely take several years beyond 2010 before real income and poverty fully recover from the effects of the downturn.

Low-income status in the United States varies significantly by race and ethnicity. Of the more than 13.4 million families with children living on incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, 30 percent are Hispanic, 22 percent are black or African American, and 6 percent are other nonwhites. This fact sheet provides statistics on racial and ethnic differences in family structure, work effort, nativity or immigration status, earnings, and education.

This brief reviews recent social and economic trends in the ten metropolitan areas that form the context for the neighborhood programs being operated as a part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Making Connections initiative. It finds that these areas are strikingly different along a number dimensions and in are many ways representative of the diversity in conditions and trends across America's metropolitan areas. Since 2002, for example, two of these areas attained among the nation's highest rates of employment growth (Denver and Seattle) while two others experienced serious declines (Oakland and Milwaukee). Although there were important differences in magnitudes, all sites did share in a number of trends: minority groups growing as a share of total population, improvements in several social indicators (e.g., in crime and teen pregnancy) but, disturbingly, notable increases in child poverty.