Hope and confusion are two appropriate reactions to this week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. In an unusual move, last week’s data was revised down 4k. Including the revision, this week’s drop to 404k seems even more impressive. The Bloomberg consensus range was 397k to 435k, so this move came in at the low end of expectations. From the report:

In the week ending Jan. 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 404,000, a decrease of 37,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 441,000. The 4-week moving average was 411,750, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 415,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.1 percent for the week ending Jan. 8, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.1 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 8 was 3,861,000, a decrease of 26,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,887,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,006,250, a decrease of 52,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,058,500.

This is still the season for high numbers of layoffs, but the week-over-week (and year-over-year) improvement is impressive (and, by the above, better than seasonal):

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 550,594 in the week ending Jan. 15, a decrease of 212,504 from the previous week. There were 652,327 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7 percent during the week ending Jan. 8, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,609,826, a decrease of 167,288 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.5 percent and the volume was 5,791,080.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 1 was 9,607,423.

A drop of over 200k new claims will make next week’s good / bad lists look much better. This week, however, looks terrible.

The good list (-1000 or more): OR, IA, MI, WI, KY

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

NY (the worst) was +24,363 vs OR (the best) at -9,579. The start of a new quarter of wage credits for benefit purposes took some of the blame, as did a return to a five day workweek. The big four returned, with trade, service, manufacturing, and construction taking the lion’s share of the blame.

In other news, the 99ers are starting to make headlines again (sooner than I expected). With 9.6 million people in our unemployment benefits programs, it is a bit difficult to imagine that there are millions more jobless whose benefits have expired. Both the Rev. and the Rep. Jesses Jackson have been trying to keep the issue in the news. In addition, Rep. McNamara is reportedly introducing a new extension bill, though I don’t expect it to go very far. Something else has started making headlines. The federal subsidization of loans to states for unemployment benefits has ended, and the bills for the interest are starting.

This was the best bad report we could have hoped for. A drop of 42k from last week’s print is impressive. However, we’re still above that 400k level (barely). Any report above that level will be called a bad report at this point.