This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released. The news is bad, but there’s nothing terribly exciting about it. Everyone is waiting for tomorrow’s monthly employment situation report. Initial claims grew to 551K (back where we were 2 weeks ago), which was above the Bloomberg consensus range (525K to 550K). Last week’s number was revised up 4,000 to 534K. From the report:

In the week ending Sept. 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 551,000, an increase of 17,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 534,000. The 4-week moving average was 548,000, a decrease of 6,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 554,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6 percent for the week ending Sept. 19, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Sept. 19 was 6,090,000, a decrease of 70,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 6,160,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,154,500, a decrease of 39,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 6,193,750.

The stabilization trend did not continue, which is unfortunate. The unadjusted numbers are only a little better:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 443,694 in the week ending Sept. 26, an increase of 5,878 from the previous week. There were 392,515 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8 percent during the week ending Sept. 19, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,054,617, a decrease of 169,287 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.3 percent and the volume was 3,018,976.

There has been some discussion about the divergence between the adjusted continuing claims number and the unadjusted number. The adjusted number seems to be significantly worse, more than previous years. This has lead to some interesting conspiracy theories (the gap can be closed in the future, painting a rosier picture than reality). While it could be manipulated, the truth is likely to be much more mundane: the seasonal adjustment technique is fairly primitive, and there have been a number of quirks this year (auto hiring patterns, extended benefits, the late Labor Day, etc). I hold the view that it is always important to look at both numbers. Both have their flaws.

The good / bad lists provide more bad news.

The good list (-1000 or more): KS, WI

The bad list (+1000 or more): KY, SC, TN, NJ, AR, GA, NC, IL, IA, FL, TX, CA

CA (the worst) was +5,112 vs KS (the best) at -1,545. Remember that these lists highlight problems from the week ending September 19th, so the return to a five day workweek took some of the blame (California and Texas both used that excuse). The bad news was widespread, though. Manufacturing, construction, and trade take the bulk of the blame.

No good news for those getting close to their benefits expiration date. The unemployment benefits extension bill seems to be slowly gaining support in the Senate. I haven’t seen any predictions for a vote.

-By crazynutjob.

Read all of crazynutjob’s unemployment report recaps here.