U.S. Economy

(CN) - Foreign born workers make up 28 percent of the labor force in Pacific states in 2015, the Labor Department announced Wednesday.

The department's Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2015, there were 26.3 million foreign-born people in the U.S. civilian labor force.

The share of the labor force that was foreign born was 16.7 percent.

The foreign born made up 28.1 percent of the labor force in Pacific states and 21.2 percent in Middle Atlantic states. The foreign born made up the smallest share of the labor force in East South Central (5.2 percent), West North Central (7.1 percent), and East North Central states (9.4 percent).

In 2015, the overall labor force participation rate of the foreign born was 65.2 percent, compared with 62.2 percent for the native born., the agency said.

Labor force participation rates of the foreign born were highest in West North Central states (71.5 percent) and lowest in Pacific and Middle Atlantic states (both 63.7 percent). In all 9 geographic divisions, labor force participation rates of the foreign born were higher than or the same as the rates for the native born.

In other economic news, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that American families overall reported continued mild improvement in their financial well-being in 2015 although many families were struggling financially and felt excluded from economic advancement, according to the Federal Reserve Board's latest "Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households.

The report, based on the Board's third "annual "Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking," presents a contrasting picture of the financial well-being of U.S. families. Aggregate-level results show several signs of improvement. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they are either "living comfortably" or "doing okay," up 4 percentage points from 2014 and up 6 percentage points from 2013. Seventy-seven percent of non-retired adults without a disability are confident that they have the skills necessary to get the kind of job that they want now an increase of 10 percentage points from the 2013 survey results.

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