Unemployment reasons, by age and education
- snitzoid
- 4 hours ago
- 1 min read
I'll tell you why! Systematic racism. Because you're Jewish!
BTW, I love big data. Even small insignificant data. If it involves anything metric I'm all in.
The chart below is interactive. Click the link below to waste another 5 minutes on this crap.
Unemployment reasons, by age and education
By Nathan Yau, Flowing data
About eight million Americans reported being unemployed, based on the Current Population Survey from January 2026. Why they were unemployed varies across groups. Here are the reasons by age and highest education attained.
Why Americans are unemployed
Of those who were unemployed and looking for a job in January 2026
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For those in their younger years, it’s a lot more common to be entering the workforce as a new entrant or coming off a break after working previously as a re-entrant. Once people are in the middle of their work career, getting laid off is the most common reason for unemployment.
I expected that people who quit a previous job would be a more common reason, but the rate never goes over 20%. Maybe this rate is partially dampened by those who have a new job lined up and then quit, so they are never unemployed.
Education, which correlates with age, shows similar rates as you go up in levels. Although the rates for being laid off an a re-entrant are flipped between those with a Master’s degree and those with a doctorate or professional degree. The high rate for laid off for Master’s level workers is interesting. I suspect this is related to the type of occupations for this group.