The revision to the unemployment data is larger than the weekly change. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report pegs the new claims number at 420k. Last week, it was 421k (before revision). The Bloomberg consensus range was 414k to 435k, so this data was largely expected. From the report:

In the week ending Dec. 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 420,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 423,000. The 4-week moving average was 422,750, a decrease of 5,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 428,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.3 percent for the week ending Dec. 4, unchanged from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.3 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Dec. 4 was 4,135,000, an increase of 22,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,113,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,185,500, a decrease of 47,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,232,750.

We’re near the bottom of a channel we’ve been in for over a year. Last year, we were near the top of that channel. The unadjusted numbers, those that correspond to actual people instead of trends, had a huge drop.

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 486,284 in the week ending Dec. 11, a decrease of 99,225 from the previous week. There were 555,383 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.2 percent during the week ending Dec. 4, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,031,909, a decrease of 183,602 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 3.9 percent and the volume was 5,192,075.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Nov. 27 was 9,191,897.

As expected, this week’s bad list looks scary. With a drop of 99,225 in seasonally unadjusted claims, next week’s lists should look great.

The good list (-1000 or more): IA, ID

The bad list (+1000 or more): IN, ME, OK, MA, MD, CO, WV, NV, LA, AZ, MN, MO, CT, OH, OR, MI, WA, NJ, AL, VA, SC, FL, TN, IL, TX, CA, GA, PA, NC, NY

NY (the worst) was +16,863 vs IA (the best) at -2,146. Return to a 5-day workweek got a little blame, but the increased layoffs in construction dominated the bad list. Trade, service, and manufacturing (the rest of the big 4) also had solid representation in the bad list.

In other news, the unemployment insurance package in Obama’s tax deal looks like it will pass. Calculated Risk pointed out that the peak in layoffs was roughly 99 weeks ago. We are likely hitting the peak in pain for the 99ers cliff, though the total number of 99ers with expired benefits is likely to be pretty close to a monotonically increasing function for at least 6 months. The layoffs of 99 weeks ago will persist higher than new jobs are added to the economy for at least that long.

This was a less-bad report. The underlying trend may have stalled, but it did not reverse. It’s better to be at the bottom of this channel than racing back toward the top. It still looks like the new year will bring a lot of pain, and not just from seasonal factors. It was looking likely that we’d peek below the celebratory 400k level before then. Time is now running short.