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Actually, the unemployment rate was 4.918497%

Actually, the unemployment rate was 4.918497%

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Gary Hershorn/Reuters

February's official unemployment rate was 4.9% - an eight year low.

Economists consider a 5% rate to indicate full employment.

But while that number is accurate, it's imprecise.

Because of rounding.

The civilian labor force, which is made up of employed people and those looking for jobs, totaled 158.890 million in February. 7.815 million of those were unemployed.

So based on those numbers, the unemployment rate is actually closer to 4.918497%.

Back in January, there were 7.791 million unemployed Americans in a labor force of 158.335 million, which made the unemployment rate about 4.92058%. (Although, the officially reported number was 4.9%).

So that technically makes February's number a 0.002083 percentage point decrease from the previous month.

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