Women Joblessness Up 15.5% Under Obama

The number of women in the U.S. without a job has increased more than 15 percent since President Barack Obama took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In June, 5,785,000 women 16 years and older were not working, according to BLS figures released on Friday. That is up by 780,000, or 15.5 percent, from the 5,005,000 women who were unemployed in January 2009 when Obama took office.

The BLS data is for women in the civilian work force and has been seasonally adjusted.

In addition, the June unemployment rate for women was 8.0 percent, up from 7.9 percent in May. Both figures are up from 7.0 percent in January 2009 when Obama took office.

The unemployment rate for men and women is 8.2 percent for June. For women, the unemployment rate has risen fairly consistently since January 2009, with some fluctuations, but peaking at 9.0 percent in November 2010.

It has remained in the mid-8 percent range throughout most of the years 2009 to 2011.

In January 2012, the unemployment rate for women was 8.3 percent — totaling 5,997,000 unemployed. That is up by 19.8 percent, or 992,000, from when Obama was inaugurated.