Here’s to trying to polish a turd. According to the Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report, new unemployment claims are down a seasonally adjusted 94,000:

In the week ending Dec. 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 492,000, a decrease of 94,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 586,000. The 4-week moving average was 552,250, a decrease of 5,750 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 558,000.

That’s a significant improvement. However, there are three reasons not to celebrate. First, it’s still high. Second, despite seasonal adjustment, this is likely to be an anomaly (I expect the numbers to rise again over the next few weeks). Last, the non-seasonally adjusted data was pointing in the opposite direction:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 718,468 in the week ending Dec. 27, an increase of 1,892 from the previous week. There were 507,908 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.

The unadjusted numbers climbed. If you are actually unemployed, you belong to the unadjusted statistic. The seasonal adjustments are useful for economic analysis insofar as seasonal trends hold.