Yesterday I blogged about US Unemployment and whether it was as bad an issue as I believe it’s being made out to be in the media. Today I’d like to take a closer look at the Jobs Report for March 2008 and focus on a breakdown of the data that is available on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Situation page.
I first heard about the availability of the breakdowns and the tale they tell after listening to a podcast of Bob Brinker’s Money Talk program during my morning workout on Monday. During that podcast, Bob talked briefly about the Jobs Report data and focused on how the numbers point to the importance of education. I liked the points he made so I thought I’d share them here with you. You can find the latest jobs report data consolidated with information from previous months at the BLS website linked above.
The link to Table A4 breaks down the employment data for the civilian population over 25 years of age by education attainment.
For our discussion, I’ve cherry picked the unemployment rates that interest me from March 2008. As a reference point, the overall national unemployment rate is listed as well:
National Unemployment Rate - 5.1%
Less than a high school diploma - 9.5%
High school graduates, no college - 5.6%
Some college or associate degree - 4.1%
Bachelor’s degree and higher - 2.0%
The conclusion Bob made, and that the data clearly points out, is that getting a college degree is an important goal that is worthy of attaining. Unemployment rates that are less than one-half the national average certainly supports this conclusion and that a degree puts you in a statistical segment of the population that faces very low unemployment rates. If you ask me, that helps set the stage for success.
For that matter, even attending some college or earning an associates degree helps put you in a category that has lower than average unemployment rates.
A high school diploma gets you real close to the national average, while failure to complete high school puts you in a category of workers that face unemployment rates almost reaching 10%.
I made my choice 20 years ago and decided to go to college not because I knew I’d face low unemployment rates but rather because my parents expected me to go. Not attending probably wasn’t an option. I’m thankful that I was able to afford to earn my degree with help of a partial academic scholarship and my parents hard work to make up the difference.
Looking at this data today as a father of two, 20+ years after I started college, it reinforces the importance of a quality education and what a great gift it would be for me to provide the same opportunity (and expectation 
) for my children.
So do you have a college savings plan for your children?
- Jeff
Learn to about personal finance to successfully mind your own business.
More from Minding My Own Business
- How Long Do You Plan to Live?
- Are You a Real Winner?
- What Are You Going to do With Your Stimulus Check?
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment