US employment-population ratio, 1948 to 2026
US employment-population ratio stood at 59.0% in 2026, down 0.2pp on the previous period.
The latest reading is 59 percent, for June 2026, against 59.2 percent in May 2026. The series is monthly (FRED series EMRATIO) and runs from January 1948.
How it is measured
The share of the civilian population aged 16 and over that is employed. It is the bluntest labor measure there is: no definitions of searching or availability, simply what fraction of adults hold work. That bluntness makes it immune to the discouraged-worker artifacts that move the unemployment rate. The data reaches us through FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's data service, and originates with the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey.
What the curve shows
The window runs from 51.2 percent (April 2020) to 64.7 percent (April 2000). When this ratio and the unemployment rate disagree about the labor market's health, economists tend to trust this one; it cannot improve because people gave up looking.
Why prefer this over the unemployment rate?
Why is it always far below 100?
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