PROVIDENCE – More than one out of every five Rhode Islanders who wanted a full-time job did not have one this spring, according to an analysis of federal employment data by The New York Times.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that this spring 21.5 percent of Rhode Island residents either were unemployed and looking for a job; working only part-time because they could not find a full-time job; or had given up on even seeking employment, the newspaper found.

The official unemployment rate only counts those who have actively looked for work during the previous four weeks. That measure stood at 12.1 percent in May; the figure for June will be released tomorrow by the R.I. Department of Labor and Training.

To calculate the broader jobless rate, David Leonhardt, The Times’ economics columnist, analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, a poll of roughly 50,000 U.S. households that the agency has conducted each month since the early 1940s.

Rhode Island’s 21.5 percent “underemployment” rate, as it is sometimes called, was tied with Michigan’s as the second-highest in the nation. The highest rate was 23.5 percent in Oregon. California was behind Rhode Island and Michigan at 20.3 percent, according to The Times.

They were the only four states with broad jobless rates above 20 percent, Leonhardt said, but several other states’ rates were just below 20 percent this spring “and may have since surpassed it.”

Providence Business News first reported in May that the federal government’s broadest measure of joblessness in Rhode Island averaged 15 percent in the 12-month period that ended March 31.

Leonhardt emphasized that the high figures do not mean the current recession is another Great Depression. For one thing, part-time workers who say they would prefer full-time work make up about one-third of those counted in the broader rates. “Such people are not quite unemployed or fully employed,” he wrote. However, that would still leave roughly 14.5 percent of Rhode Islanders completely out of work.

Leonhardt also noted recent reports by both The Times and The Associated Press that found money for jobs funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in February is flowing disproportionately to states with lower jobless rates, rather than places like Rhode Island that would appear to need the jobs most.