Weekly Unemployment Claims, the New Normal: 427K, Last Week Revised Up to 426K
In the week ending June 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 427,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 426,000. The 4-week moving average was 424,000, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 426,750.
… The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 364,507 in the week ending June 4, a decrease of 16,990 from the previous week. There were 398,864 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.
The year-over-year drop in raw claims was less than 10%.
Here are the past 14 weeks. Note that every week presented saw an upward revision or two to the original figure:
420k+ claims is not a recipe for decent job or economic growth.
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UPDATE: Steve at No Runny Eggs noted in a previous post’s comment that expectations were for 415K. Naturally.
UPDATE 2: At the Associated Press, in its initial 8:40 a.m. report, the big bad bogeyman of the recession’s peak in weekly claims is back —
Applications typically must dip below 375,000 to signal sustainable job growth. They peaked during the recession at 659,000.
That was about 120 weeks ago, guys. Who cares?
UPDATE 3: Hmm — The 659,000-in-recession reference went away in Christopher Rugaber’s longer replacement write-up at the same link at 9:02 a.m.
[...] week’s number revised upward – Check (Tom Blumer notes the prior week’s increase from 422,000 to 426,000 is the 14th week in a row [...]
Pingback by No Runny Eggs » Blog Archive » Initial unemployment claims continue to disappoint — June 9, 2011 @ 9:08 am
Just saw Bloomberg’s expectations, and they were a bit more optimistic than everybody else at 419K. They, along with Reuters (who used the more-widely-reported 415K), broke out the “unexpected” for the headline/lede of their story.
Comment by steveegg — June 9, 2011 @ 9:12 am
#2, Bloomberg’s miss was closer but more pessimistic about where the number would be, though the regime may be optimistic about a larger continuing stream of dependents.
I know — let’s raise the gas tax by 50 cents to a buck a gallon, like GM’s CEO suggested. That’ll push claims to 450-475K. Zheesh.
Comment by TBlumer — June 9, 2011 @ 9:17 am
#2 BTW, you are doing a great job on monitoring the recall situation in WI, and your predictions a few months ago IIRC were pretty dead-on.
Comment by TBlumer — June 9, 2011 @ 10:24 am
[...] my friends!!!! In fact, Bizzyblog notes the horrid unemployment figures will be presented as the “new normal.” Add to these data points the fact that the median period for joblessness has hit a new [...]
Pingback by PALIN TOPS POLL AT 100% « Temple of Mut — June 9, 2011 @ 12:35 pm
I did wholly underestimate the number of recall elections that would be forced, but I’m still confident on my final 2-2 to 3-2 in favor of the Rs flip prediction.
Comment by steveegg — June 9, 2011 @ 7:29 pm