Unemployment Part 1
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The unemployment rate for individuals with at least a bachelor’s degree is consistently about half the unemployment rate for high school graduates.

In 2009, with an average annual unemployment rate of 7.9% for individuals ages 25 and older, unemployment had risen sharply for all levels of educational attainment. The 4.6% unemployment rate for those with at least a four-year college degree was 5.1 percentage points lower than the 9.7% unemployment rate for high school graduates.
In 1999 and 2000, with low overall unemployment rates of 4.0% and 4.2%, respectively, the gap between the unemployment rates for college graduates and high school graduates was 1.7 percentage points.
From 1992 through 2009, the annual unemployment rate for individuals with some college but less than a four-year degree was between 0.7 and 1.7 percentage points lower than the unemployment rate for high school graduates.

	Education Level
	Not a High School Graduate	High School Graduate	Some College or Associate Degree	Bachelor's Degree or Higher
1992	11.5%	6.8%	5.6%	3.2%
1993	10.8%	6.3%	5.2%	2.9%
1994	9.8%	5.4%	4.5%	2.6%
1995	9.0%	4.8%	4.0%	2.4%
1996	8.7%	4.7%	3.7%	2.2%
1997	8.1%	4.3%	3.3%	2.0%
1998	7.1%	4.0%	3.0%	1.8%
1999	6.7%	3.5%	2.8%	1.8%
2000	6.3%	3.4%	2.7%	1.7%
2001	7.2%	4.2%	3.3%	2.3%
2002	8.4%	5.3%	4.5%	2.9%
2003	8.8%	5.5%	4.8%	3.1%
2004	8.5%	5.0%	4.2%	2.7%
2005	7.6%	4.7%	3.9%	2.3%
2006	6.8%	4.3%	3.6%	2.0%
2007	7.1%	4.4%	3.6%	2.0%
2008	9.0%	5.7%	4.6%	2.6%
2009	14.6%	9.7%	8.0%	4.6%