United States

Labor force participation rate

Name: Labor force participation rate data for United States
Creator: FRED
License: https://macrobymark.com/about/terms-of-use#data-providers

Labor-force participation measures the share of people working or actively looking for work. It helps distinguish weak employment from people leaving the labor force.

World Bank FRED

Frequencymonthly · +1Transformlevel

Source: FRED · CIVPART

Stored official data

Labor force participation rate - United States in United States was 61.8% on May 1, 2026, unchanged from the prior observation. Charted from monthly observations in %.

Latest61.80%

MoM0.00%

YoY-0.96%

10Y Avg62.46%

Latest observationMay 1, 2026

Model surprise-0.04%

Timeframe

Value transform

Version overlay

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Chart appearance

TypeScale

Overlays & outputNBER bandsAuto Y

Axis & export

Min58.10%

Mean62.83%

Max67.30%

Latest observationMay 1, 2026

Source evidence

Tier 1 - critical

Source note Provider health

Source

FRED

Native key

CIVPART

Freshness

Stored · 2026-05-01

History

Source-native vintage

Reuse

Dataset exceptions

Research notes

82 · Acceptable

ComparabilityAggregator is not the statistical authority: Use the source agency, source code, and methodology link when citing or reconciling with official releases.Labor definitions vary by survey and agency: Do not mix levels across definitions; compare rates or changes only after matching population, adjustment, and frequency.Seasonal-adjustment status needs attention: Prefer same-adjustment comparisons, or transform to year-over-year changes before cross-series comparison.

3 notes

QualitySource authority: 82/100. Aggregator source: useful access layer, but official methodology remains with the originating agency.Methodology completeness: 100/100. 100% of core provider, geography, unit, frequency, citation, and revision fields are populated.Timeliness and freshness: 90/100. 940 observations available; latest observation 2026-05-01; platform fetch 2026-06-19T05:53:05.631Z; release status none; data status liveRevision and vintage depth: 100/100. Point-in-time data via the FRED ALFRED endpoint. Each request returns the values as they were published on the supplied vintage date.

4/6 strong

CitationLabor force participation rate - United States (FRED (St. Louis Fed): CIVPART, United States, retrieved Jun 19, 2026)

Retrieved Jun 19, 2026

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Series details

SourceFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED)

CategoryLabor

FrequencyMonthly

Unit%

Latest observationMay 1, 2026

Platform last fetchJune 19, 2026

Transformslevel, mom, yoy, index 100

About this series

Labor Force Participation Rate

The reading right now

As of May 2026, Labor force participation rate for United States stood at 61.8%. That is unchanged from the prior month. Over the trailing five years, the series has averaged 62.3%, ranging from a low of 61.6% in May 2021 to a high of 62.8% in August 2023. The current reading sits 0.66 percentage points below its trailing ten-year mean of 62.5%.

Computed from the observation series on this page. Numbers update when the underlying provider revises the data.