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Unemployment Rate UNRATE

Percent • Monthly • Seasonally Adjusted
Source: FRED | Last updated: 2025-09-05 07:51:01-05 | Range: 1948-01-01 → 2025-08-01

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Trend

Momentum

Trend Heat Strip & Seasonality

YoY Heat Strip

≤ −5% Decline > +5% Growth

Seasonality (Average by Month)

What am I looking at?

What it shows: the average level of the series for each calendar month (Jan…Dec) across the full history.

Computation: for each month m, take the mean of all observations whose calendar month = m (all years equally weighted).
Interpretation:
- Not seasonally adjusted (NSA): clear recurring peaks/troughs by month.
- Seasonally adjusted (SA): should be fairly flat (seasonality already removed).
Caveats: uses raw levels, so long-run trend can dominate; best for monthly series. For a relative view, consider a seasonal index (month_mean ÷ overall_mean − 1) or limit to the last N years.

Distribution & Extremes

Histogram of Monthly Changes

Context

Recent Prints

Date	Value	MoM	YoY

Release

Employment Situation

See full release page

Typical schedule and next expected date may vary; check the release page for official timing.

What this measures & how to read it

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 series comes from the 'Current Population Survey (Household Survey)'

The source code is: LNS14000000

Tip: focus on multi-month trends to reduce noise from seasonality, one-off shocks, and revisions.