Weekly Unemployment Claims: Initial and Continued July 07 2015

Today’s jobless claims report showed a an increase to both initial and insured unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims approched the 300K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims increased 15,000 to 297,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “insured” claims increased by 69,000 to 2.334 million resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 1.7%.

Weekly Unemployment Claims: Initial and Continued December 11 2014

Today’s jobless claims report showed an decline to initial unemployment claims and an increase to continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims trended below the 300K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims declined 3,000 to 294,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 142,000 to 2.514 million resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 1.9%.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims August 30 2012

Today’s jobless claims report indicated that initial unemployment claims went flat and continued unemployment claims declined slightly while seasonally adjusted initial claims remained below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” wen flat at 374,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 5,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.6%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 2.27 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.16 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 5.44 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims February 23 2012

Today’s jobless claims report showed that initial unemployment claims went flat while continued unemployment claims declined as seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” went unchanged at 351,000 claims from last week’s revised 351,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 52,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.40 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.98 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.39 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims June 30 2011

Today’s jobless claims report showed a slight decline to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a rising trend continued to materialize for initial claims.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined by 1,000 to 428,000 claims from last week’s revised 429,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 12,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.9%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.92 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.30 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.41 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims June 02 2011

Today’s jobless claims report showed an slight decline to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a rising trend continued to materialize for initial claims.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined by 6,000 to 422,000 claims from last week’s revised 428,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 1,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 3.0%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 4.04 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.54 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.58 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims May 12 2011

Today’s jobless claims report showed a notable decline to initial unemployment claims and an increase to continued unemployment claims as a notable rising trend continued to materialize for initial claims.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined by 44,000 to 434,000 claims from last week’s revised 478,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 5,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 3.0%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 4.10 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.76 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.87 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims January 28 2010

While today’s jobless claims report continued to show a steady trend down to both initial and continued unemployment claims with a nearly textbook peak shaping up, considering the federal extended claims data offers a more dire view of the state of the job market and of the economy as a whole.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims decreased by 8,000 to 470,000 claims from last week’s revised 478,000 claims while “continued” claims decreased 57,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 3.5%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 5.6 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 5.79 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are well over 11 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

The following chart shows the recent trend in initial non-seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims with the year-over-year percent change acting as a rough equivalent of a seasonally adjustment.

Historically, unemployment claims both “initial” and “continued” (ongoing claims) are a good leading indicator of the unemployment rate and inevitably the overall state of the economy.

I have added a chart to the lineup which shows “population adjusted” continued claims (ratio of unemployment claims to the non-institutional population) and the unemployment rate since 1967.

Adjusting for the general increase in population tames the continued claims spike down a bit.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows “initial” and “continued” claims, averaged monthly, overlaid with U.S. recessions since 1967.

Also, acceleration and deceleration of unemployment claims has generally preceded comparable movements to the unemployment rate by 3 – 8 months (click for larger version).

Benefit Explosion!: Extended Unemployment Claims December 31

While today’s jobless claims report continued to show a steady trend down to both initial and continued unemployment claims with a nearly textbook peak shaping up, considering the federal extended claims data offers a more dire view of the state of the job market and of the economy as a whole.

Since the middle of 2008 two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 4.816 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 5.34 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are well over 10 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.