U.S. Unemployment Rate · Ages 20–24

## What this measures

The share of the labor force aged 20 to 24 that is unemployed: without a job, available for work and looking. Monthly, seasonally adjusted, from 1948.

## Why it matters

Young adults are the first to feel a slowdown in hiring and among the last to recover from it. This is the official, unsmoothed read on their job market, with more than seven decades of history.

## How to read it

It sits well above the overall rate and moves more, so compare its changes with the headline rate (fred_unemployment) rather than its level. For degree holders of the same age, see fred_unemployment_rate_bachelors_20_24 and the NY Fed's recent-graduate series (labor.nyfed.recent_grads.unemployment_rate).

## What it does not say

It mixes students who are looking for work with graduates and people who never went to college. It does not count people who have stopped looking.

## Source

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, series LNS14000036 ("Unemployment Rate - 20-24 Yrs."). Palanor pulls it from the FRED API (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) nightly. Bureau of Labor Statistics data are in the public domain.