Born in the USA - and Not Working

Calling the situation "particularly bad for minorities, the young and less-educated Americans," the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a research report finding that there are 21 million native-born Americans who are either unemployed, want to work but have not looked for a job recently, or are involuntarily working part-time. This group is referred to as the U-6 measure. Of that total, 12.5 million are unemployed.

CIS said that using the U-6 measure, there are 10.4 million native-born Americans with a high-school education or less who are out of work and another 18.7 million not in the labor force, which the research group said means "they are not looking for work." Together, CIS said these "less-educated" natives total 29.1 million.

CIS said the situation is also particularly bad for minorities and the young. It noted, for example, that the U-6 rate for native-born Americans with a high-school education was 31.2% for those18-29, 39.8% for blacks and 33.9% for Hispanics.

CIS said these workers "face the most competition from immigrants - legal and illegal." It noted that there are an estimated 7-8 million illegal immigrants holding jobs in the United States.

The study, "A Huge Pool of Potential Workers: Unemployment, Underemployment and Non-Work Among Native-Born Americans," is authored by CIS Director of Research Steven A. Camarota and Demographer Karen Jensenius.