What the jobless claims report doesn't show
Jobless claims appear to flattening - seasonally adjusted unemployment claims declined by 24,000 to 456,000 claims, the Labor Department reported. But other figures shows a different story.
Taken together with the latest 4.98 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, as this chart shows.
Source: Blytec
Today鈥檚 jobless claims report showed a decline to both initial claims and continued claims with a subtle flattening continuing to shape up for both series while total continued claims including federal extended benefits appear to be flattening.
Seasonally adjusted 鈥渋nitial鈥� unemployment claims declined by 24,000 to 456,000 claims from last week鈥檚 revised 480,000 claims while 鈥渃ontinued鈥� claims declined by 40,000 resulting in an 鈥渋nsured鈥� unemployment rate of 3.6%.
Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored 鈥渆xtended鈥� unemployment benefit programs (the 鈥渆xtended benefits鈥� and 鈥淓UC 2008鈥� from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.
Currently there are some 5.49 million people receiving federal 鈥渆xtended鈥� unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 4.98 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.
The chart, above, 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 鈥渋nitial鈥� and 鈥渃ontinued鈥� (ongoing claims) are a good leading indicator of the unemployment rate and inevitably the overall state of the economy.
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