Today’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was a bit of a disappointment. Sure, the headline new claims number of 428k was inside the Bloomberg consensus range of 410k to 430k, and it was 1k less than the previous week’s number (unrevised). That must be weighed against the fact that it was 14k above the figure from 2 weeks ago and the fact that 6 states couldn’t get their data in on time (estimates were used) for the report, reducing the reliability of the data. This is unfortunate, because this is generally one of the cleaner data points we get that is both timely and frequent. From the report:
In the week ending June 25, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 428,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 429,000. The 4-week moving average was 426,750, an increase of 500 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 426,250.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week ending June 18, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 18 was 3,702,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,714,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,703,500, a decrease of 11,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,714,750.
The unadjusted data looks a little worse:
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 403,284 in the week ending June 25, an increase of 8,998 from the previous week. There were 444,712 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.
The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.8 percent during the week ending June 18, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,491,213, a decrease of 320 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 3.4 percent and the volume was 4,328,074.
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending June 11 was 7,511,613, a decrease of 30,701 from the previous week.
In other news, nearly every private employer in the U.S. will get a tax cut on Friday, thanks to the expiration of a 35-year-old “temporary” unemployment tax. Also, because it was feared that New Jersey might take steps to help plug the gaping hole in their unemployment insurance fund, the legislature stepped in and made the hole bigger. This was quickly signed by Governor Christie and everyone rejoiced, save those that wonder how bubble gum and spit are going to fill these budget holes.
This was a bad report, and not just because we were over 400k new claims. It was also a bad report because of a significant chunk of missing data. Expect a revision next week and hope for the best.
