Weekly jobless claims fall 50,000 to 565k !!!

In stunning news, the BLS reported this morning that weekly jobless claims fell 50,000 to 565,000.

At their peak in April, weekly jobless claims were 659,000. This is almost 100,000 less claims than then. Note that in previous years the July 4 holiday has not affected these seasonally adjusted numbers, so appears not to be an issue.

Even during the booming 1990s, weekly jobless claims averaged about 300,000-325,000 a week, so this week's figure represents an ~30% improvement.

This number is consistent with the bottom of the recession being called by the NBER right now.

I've been crunching numbers on this exact point, I will post more later when I get the chance (maybe tonight or tomorrow morning).

Consider this a Jack and the Beanstalk sized green shoot.

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that is good news

did someone tweak some numbers with a "seasonal adjustment"?

;)

new claims are adjusted, plus continued claims @ record high

Calculated Risk.

DOL:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 577,506 in the week ending July 4, an increase of 17,612 from the previous week.

Then on seasonally adjusted:

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 27 was 6,883,000, an increase of 159,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 6,724,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,769,000, an increase of 12,000 from the preceding week's revised average of 6,757,000.

Which is different in exactly which way

from any other week?

If anything thinks this week's number is artificially low, they need to cite to where they thought any previous week's number was "artificially high."

July 4th weekend

is the difference.

Why do I have to claim something was artificially high? I mean the entire damn country is out of a job. From the underemployment, the temp mania in the U.S., people rolling off, not counted...how can I ever say the stats are artificially high?

I'll believe it when I see it

Since this number could also be explained by 55,000 Americans losing the last of their unemployment benefits after 26 weeks.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.