Half a Million New Jobless Claims Filed
This post first appeared on Daily Kos.
For well over a year, both professional and amateur analysts of the economy have avidly watched how many new claims for unemployment benefits are filed each week. At 674,000, the peak for new claims was reached March 7, 2009. And the numbers went down from there, with some hiccups, until December. Although those numbers weren’t great, they steadily improved, indicating that hiring would soon exceed firing and some job growth would begin, which it did, although tentatively.
After December, however, the drop in initial claims – as well as the volatility-smoothing four-week running average of initial claims – got stuck. Week after week, for months, the figure went up and down around a narrow range. Over the past few weeks, however, in an ominous sign, we’ve moved off the frustrating plateau as claims have begun rising again, far higher than the experts expected. Today, the Department of Labor announced that 500,000 initial claims were filed for the preceding week, and the four-week average rose to 482,500. That slippage puts us at the same place we were nine months ago. And while continuing claims continue to drop, at least some of that can be attributed to Americans whose jobless benefits are now exhausted.
Tie this into the lackluster Bureau of Labor Statistics job reports for the past three months, during which a paltry number of private-sector jobs have been created. Add in the weak second-quarter GDP report in July (which almost certainly will prove to be even weaker when the first revision is announced later this month). Plus, every few days, there’s another release like that from today’s gloomy manufacturing report of the Philadelphia Fed: not just the stalled growth of the past two months, but a move into negative territory.
The stock market took a three-digit tumble on the news.
To understate, none of this is very encouraging. That applies both to those without jobs and those fearing they may lose their jobs, including Democratic incumbents in the House and Senate. It-could-have-been-worse will not make for a very persuasive get-out-the-vote message if those statistical improvements we started seeing in the economy more than a year ago still seem on the precipice of reversal come election day. Not that voters shouldn’t be constantly reminded of who the major obstacle in improving the situation is. President Obama once again on Thursday urged obstructionist Republicans to stop blocking the modest jobs bill. We know how that will likely end.
The only faint glimmer of hope is that these awful jobless claims numbers and associated calculations, distorted by Census layoffs and other statistical “noise,” will turn out to be temporary, just part of a choppiness that accompanies many recoveries.
There is a silver lining of sorts. Not as many people are dying on the job, according to Businessweek, because not as many people are on the job.
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