This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report is similar to last week’s. New claims fell fast on an adjusted basis, but grew fast on an unadjusted basis. There is one critical difference: the adjusted number of new claims has hit a new low since the peak. That’s right, actual progress for the first time in months. The new claims number dropped to 429k while last week’s number was revised up 4k. New claims were at the low end of the Bloomberg consensus range of 420k to 460k, though this is widely being reported as a solid trouncing of expectations (another similarity to last week). From the report:

In the week ending July 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 429,000, a decrease of 29,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 458,000. The 4-week moving average was 455,250, a decrease of 11,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7 percent for the week ending July 3, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.5 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 3 was 4,681,000, an increase of 247,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,434,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,581,250, an increase of 22,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,559,250.

You will excuse me if I do not pop the champagne just yet. First, we haven’t yet pushed through 400k, and I’m going to stick with the thesis that the level correlated with sustained jobs growth is the level worth celebrating. Second, particularly with new claims data, two weeks does not make a trend. Third, seasonal adjustment factors once again dominate the weekly change. The non-statistically adjusted, real-world people you meet each day are signing up for unemployment benefits at a rate faster than last week:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 513,347 in the week ending July 10, an increase of 44,855 from the previous week. There were 671,242 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.4 percent during the week ending July 3, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,367,712, an increase of 53,180 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.6 percent and the volume was 6,173,940.

The unadjusted numbers is the weakest reason not to celebrate. There’s very little story here. The move in the unadjusted numbers is similar to previous years, it’s just the level that we should still be unhappy with.

The good / bad lists look a little worse than last week (this tracks last week’s unadjusted new claims number):

The good list (-1000 or more): FL, GA, CT, PA

The bad list (+1000 or more): SC, TN, IN, AL, CA, OH, IL, MI, NJ, NY

NY (the worst) was +8,066 vs FL (the best) at -3,586. Construction and agriculture found their ways into the good lists without also being in the bad list. Trade, service, manufacturing, and transportation all had multiple hits in the bad list.

In other news, there’s a new unemployment benefits extension bill on the horizon. Depending on who you listen to (Robert Gibbs or Harry Reid), the date for the next vote will be July 19th or July 20th.

Despite the similarities to last week’s report, this is a much stronger report. It is still too early to celebrate, but setting a new recovery low in new claims is significant. Let’s cross our fingers for the weeks to come.