Slow and steady wins the race. That’s the hope with the new claims numbers for unemployment insurance. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released. New claims dropped to 442k. This is short of the 400k level we associate with sustainable jobs growth, but a noticeable improvement over last week’s 457k, which was revised down 1,000 to 456k. Note that this was better than the Bloomberg consensus range of 445k to 460k. From the report:
In the week ending March 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 442,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 456,000. The 4-week moving average was 453,750, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 464,750.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the week ending March 13, unchanged from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.6 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 13 was 4,648,000, a decrease of 54,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,702,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,689,000, a decrease of 36,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,725,500.
We’re almost at pre-Christmas churn rates. The seasonally unadjusted numbers, those that correspond to actual people instead of statistical trends, support the view that things are getting better:
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 405,557 in the week ending March 20, a decrease of 30,447 from the previous week. There were 590,067 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.
The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.1 percent during the week ending March 13, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,321,697, a decrease of 81,308 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.8 percent and the volume was 6,440,135.
This is the best unadjusted number since October of 2008. Unfortunately, it’s the trend (adjusted numbers) that we are waiting for to cross the 400k barrier. Nobody break anything. Seriously. You hear me, state and local governments with cash-hemorrhaging budgets? In other news, most analysts are expecting cuts in state and local governments.
The good/bad lists look good this week. New York hangs on to the top spot while California moved back to the dark side.
The good list (-1000 or more): NY, IL, NC, PA, OH, VA, TX, AL, OR, MA, IN
The bad list (+1000 or more): MI, CA
CA (the worst) was +3,434 vs NY (the best) at -4,142. As usual, construction, manufacturing, service, and trade get most of the credit for the swings (in that order) for the dominant list. Only Michigan provided a negative comment, “Layoffs in the automobile industry,” which was countered by opposite comments in Ohio and Indiana.
There doesn’t appear to be much news on the legislative front re: unemployment. COBRA extensions expire on April 5, but Congress is scheduled to go on vacation tomorrow. Once again, Republican lawmakers appear to be asking Democrats to offset the increased spending with cuts elsewhere before allowing additional extensions.
Absent any shocks, this trend down in new claims will lead us to a jobs recovery. The threat of shocks, both internal and external, remains a genuine concern.
