On average workers appear to be benefitting from a robust job market, with the percentage of workers unable to find a living-wage job at the lowest level in six months, according to the monthly True Rate of Unemployment (TRU) report by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP).

The November TRU — a measure of the "functionally unemployed," defined as the jobless plus those seeking, but unable to find, full-time employment paying above the poverty line — decreased 0.3 percentage points, from 22.7% to 22.4%. This is the fourth consecutive month the TRU has trended downward, and the lowest level since the June rate of 21.7%.

While most demographic groups saw negligible changes, with the TRU for Black workers remaining unchanged at 25.2% and Hispanic workers seeing a slight uptick, from 26.3% to 26.4%, White workers saw a significant improvement, with the TRU dropping by a half of a percentage point, from 21.6% in October to 21.1% in November. The TRU for women was unchanged at 26.8%, while the TRU for men dropped 0.6 percentage points, from 19% to 18.4%.

Among groups by education level, those without a high school diploma saw the biggest improvement, dropping by 2.7 percentage points, although their rate of functional unemployment remains extremely high at 44.4%. Groups with a high school diploma but no college and those with some college both saw a 0.4 percentage point improvement to 26.1% and 25.1%, respectively. Meanwhile, those with college degrees saw an increase in the functional unemployment rate: the TRU for those with bachelor's degrees increased 0.2 percentage points, from 14.6% to 14.8%, while those with advanced degrees increased 0.3 percentage points, from 12.2% to 12.5%.

LISEP Chairman Gene Ludwig said a declining TRU is always welcome news, and it is noteworthy most are holding their own, even in the face of rising prices. But he added a lack of overall improvement among those groups who need it the most is concerning.

"While we are pleased to see an overall gradual improvement in the living-wage job prospects for middle- and working-class Americans, the improvement is so slight as not to put a dent in the losses we have witnessed over the last two decades, and minority populations are seeing no progress at all," Ludwig said. "Simply 'not falling behind' is not good enough. It should be our collective resolution for the upcoming year to focus our efforts on helping those who need it the most."