Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Statement by the President on the November Employment Report.

December 04, 1964

THE November employment report is both encouraging and sobering.

The overall 5 percent figure for general unemployment conceals both a major breakthrough and a continuing crisis.

The unemployment rate for married men is down now to 2 1/2 percent--its lowest point in 7 years.

We have reduced unemployment among this group by a third in the past 12 months.

There are a million and a half more people at work in this country today than there were a year ago.

The November figures also point out sharply where the worst problem remains: the unemployment rate for boys and girls under 20 is almost 15 percent--six times as high as the rate for married men.

There are gains on this front, too. Three hundred and thirty thousand more teenagers are at work than there were a year ago.

But they are pouring into the work force at an unprecedented rate. There will be a greater increase in the number of 18- and 19-year-old boys and girls in the work force in the next 12 months than during the entire period between 1950 and 1960.

We have got to get these boys and girls into jobs, or training programs, or back into school. We can't afford the price of turning down one out of every seven young Americans who apply for admission to responsible citizenship.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President on the November Employment Report. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241476

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