Unemployment rate steadies at 8.6%, Homeless at about 1.56 million people, or about 0.5% of the U.S. population. Continues to rise at steady rate.

One of those figures is called the U-6 rate, which has a broader definition of unemployment than does the U-3. In April, that number was 8.6 percent.
This year that number reached nearly 554,000 — a 1 percent increase from last year, driven by the dramatic surge in West Coast cities.