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CONKLING KOPCIKECONOMICS
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United States: Unemployment rate (monthly)

Unemployed people aged 15 and over as a percentage of the labour force, seasonally adjusted, on the ILO definition as harmonised by the OECD.

Data status: Current
Official statisticSource figures as of October 16, 2026Sources & methods
Sources
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Period covered
Jan 1955 – Sep 2026
Source figures as of
October 16, 2026
Geography
United States
Sector
Whole economy (not a single sector)
Seasonal adjustment
Seasonally adjusted
Transformations
Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
Revisions
Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
Data status
Current

Full method · Research standards

Key figures

CK estimate% of labour force · calculated by CK Economics from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data

Latest · Sep 2026
4.2
−0.2 pp vs a year earlier1
5-year change
−0.5 pp
since Sep 20212
10-year change
−0.8 pp
since Sep 20162
Record high
14.8
Apr 20203
Record low
3.4
Sep 1968 (and 9 other periods)3
Where the latest ranks
16th pct.
Higher than 16% of the other 859 observations since Jan 19554
  1. 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
  2. 2Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier.
  3. 3Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
  4. 4Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.

Methodology

Unemployed people aged 15 and over as a percentage of the labour force, seasonally adjusted, on the ILO definition as harmonised by the OECD. National statistics as compiled by the OECD. Read from the OECD's SDMX API, or from its DBnomics mirror when the OECD's API is unavailable; the series' source note says which. Source series DSD_LFS@DF_IALFS_UNE_M/USA.UNE_LF_M.PT_LF_SUB._Z.Y._T.Y_GE15._Z.M. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

How we collect, check and project every dataset →

Source

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Data Explorer (OECD, retrieved 2026-10-19). https://sdmx.oecd.org/public/rest/data/OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_LFS@DF_IALFS_UNE_M,/USA.UNE_LF_M.PT_LF_SUB._Z.Y._T.Y_GE15._Z.M

All data

860 observations, newest first · % of labour force

Downloading means you accept our TermsCSVJSON
PeriodValueChange y/y
Sep 20264.2−0.2 pp
Aug 20264.1−0.2 pp
Jul 20264.1−0.2 pp
Jun 20264.2+0.1 pp
May 20264.30 pp
Apr 20264.3+0.1 pp
Mar 20264.3+0.1 pp
Feb 20264.4+0.2 pp
Jan 20264.3+0.3 pp
Dec 20254.4+0.3 pp
Nov 20254.5+0.3 pp
Sep 20254.4+0.3 pp
Aug 20254.3+0.1 pp
Jul 20254.3+0.1 pp
Jun 20254.10 pp
May 20254.3+0.4 pp
Apr 20254.2+0.3 pp
Mar 20254.2+0.3 pp
Feb 20254.2+0.3 pp
Jan 20254+0.3 pp
Dec 20244.1+0.3 pp
Nov 20244.2+0.5 pp
Oct 20244.1+0.2 pp
Sep 20244.1+0.4 pp