The U.S. official unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in July from 4.5% last November, and economists expect it to hold steady at 4.1% in August. The Federal Reserve views this figure as a signal that the economy is at or near full employment, shifting its policy focus to fighting inflation. However, the alternate measure from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), which tracks functional unemployment including involuntary part-time workers and poverty-wage earners, rose to 24.9% in July, up 1.3 percentage points since March and marking a fourth consecutive monthly increase. Notably, functional unemployment for women jumped 1.6 percentage points to 31%, its highest level since March 2021.
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