153,156,000 Employed Americans in April, 3rd Straight Record; Unemployment Rate Dips to 4.4%

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CNS News

(CNSNews.com) - The number of employed Americans set a third straight monthly record in April, increasing by 156,000 to 153,156,000; and the nation's unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a point to 4.4 percent.
On the negative side, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said the labor force participation rate dropped a tenth of a point in April; and the number of Americans NOT in the labor force increased for the second straight month to 94,375,000, compared with 94,213,000 in March.
The numbers are important: People who are employed have Social Security and other payroll taxes deducted from their paychecks, and those taxes help to support many other people who do not work for various reasons and who may receive taxpayer-funded entitlements or benefits.

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160,213,000: Number of Americans in Labor Force Hits Record High

 

The number of Americans either working or looking for work in the past month hit a record high of 160,213,000, according to numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There were 12,000 more Americans who joined the labor force in April, while 162,000 left. The number of Americans not participating in the labor force increased from 94,213,000 in March to 94,375,000 in April. The bureau counts those not in the labor force as people who do not have a job and did not actively seek one in the past four weeks.
The labor force participation rate, which is the percentage of the population that has a job or actively looked for one in the past month, declined slightly from 63 percent in March to 62.9 percent in April.