U.S. Economy Added 379,000 Jobs in Feb. 2021 – Small Progress, Further Steps Needed

Today the Labor Department released national unemployment figures for the month of February 2021, revealing not much has changed in a month. February’s unemployment rate was calculated at 6.2 percent (compared to 6.3 percent in January 2021). CEI Research Fellow Sean Higgins said government must do more to remove unneeded barriers to work.

“The most optimistic sign in Labor Department’s jobs report today is that in February a half-million fewer people said they were prevented from looking for work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, down to 4.2 million from January’s 4.7 million,” said Higgins. “The overall unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.2 percent however, indicating that those workers need their government to further dismantle the artificial barriers to working.”