We’re still below 500k. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released. Initial claims increased to 474,000. Last week’s number was unrevised. This was in the middle of the Bloomberg consensus range of 450k to 500k (I’ve seen a few headlines calling it worse than expected, which is why I look at the consensus range). From the report:

In the week ending Dec. 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 474,000, an increase of 17,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 457,000. The 4-week moving average was 473,750, a decrease of 7,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 481,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.9 percent for the week ending Nov. 28, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.1 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Nov. 28 was 5,157,000, a decrease of 303,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,460,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,416,500, a decrease of 123,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,540,000.

Keeping under 500k new claims is a good thing, but not good enough. If there was a sustainable source of hiring, these numbers would be indicative of a recovery. New claims peaked just above 500k in the last two recessions. Now, there is no source of hiring, and we need 100k new jobs a month just to keep up with the population. Things look even worse if you try to account for Baby Boomers who will probably have to return to the workforce for financial reasons. The economy is still shedding jobs. The gap between where we are and where we need to be is unlikely to be closed quickly. While the actual recession may be declared to be over (likely a few months ago), we need new claims to fall below 400k to be “stable.”

The unadjusted numbers look a bit more frightening. Looking at the disparity between these numbers and the above, it’s clear that there’s a tradition many would like to do without. Black Friday was followed by pink slip Monday:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 664,865 in the week ending Dec. 5, an increase of 204,703 from the previous week. There were 759,531 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.1 percent during the week ending Nov. 28, an increase of 0.5 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,373,871, an increase of 591,085 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 3.4 percent and the volume was 4,493,526.

Given the dates involved, this is indicative of the need for seasonal adjustments. It is still worth recognizing the strain that state budgets are being exposed to. It’s also worth pointing out the improvement in new claims over last year. We’re one step closer to “stable.”

The good / bad list looks good in this report. These lists refer to the week including Thanksgiving.

The good list (-1000 or more): CA, TX, NC, FL, IL, VA, GA, NY, SC, TN, WA, AL, NJ, MI, AZ, OK, NV, CO, MD, LA, CT

The bad list (+1000 or more): AR, ID, IN, IA, MO, KS, WI

WI (the worst) was +8,067 vs CA (the best) at -28,672. California, Virginia, New Jersey, and Nevada gave some credit to Thanksgiving (fewer days to get canned). Construction, manufacturing, service, and trade were all given credit in the good list. Manufacturing took some blame from both Indiana and Wisconsin. Most in the bad list provided no comment. Given the unadjusted numbers in this report, next week’s bad list isn’t going to be pretty.

I didn’t see any news on the fixed unemployment benefits extension this week. I did find out that a computer glitch delayed extended benefit checks to over 100k in California, but that is a mere curiosity compared to the roughly 3 million people who will go without a check in January just due to the expiration date. Social welfare programs are typically designed to be “stabilizers” or “shock absorbers.” The broken version of the unemployment benefits extension will have the opposite effect, focusing more than three months of problems onto a single day. This needs to be fixed.

Bottom line: this was a decent report, though we used much of the buffer below 500k created for us last week. New claims are relatively unimportant when compared to the number of expiring claims at the end of the year if the benefits extension bill isn’t fixed.

UPDATE: Minutes after posting this, I see a headline scroll by indicating that Pelosi has called for a fix to the benefits extension to pass next week.