Unemployment: New Claims H--Wait a Second...

I’ve revised my short term outlook for the unemployed negatively. But first, the weekly statistics. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released. Initial claims were “unchanged” at 505,000. This isn’t much comfort because it required an upward revision of 3,000 to last week’s number. This was inside the Bloomberg consensus range of 500k to 520k. From the report:

In the week ending Nov. 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 505,000, unchanged from the previous week’s revised figure of 505,000. The 4-week moving average was 514,000, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 520,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.3 percent for the week ending Nov. 7, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.3 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Nov. 7 was 5,611,000, a decrease of 39,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,650,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,711,500, a decrease of 83,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,795,000.

We are close to the 500,000 mark. Fortunately, the unadjusted numbers moved lower. Remember that after the holidays, this number is going to skyrocket, as it does every year.

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 479,295 in the week ending Nov. 14, a decrease of 53,132 from the previous week. There were 513,000 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7 percent during the week ending Nov. 7, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,881,874, a decrease of 79,243 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.6 percent and the volume was 3,521,971.

There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about these numbers this week.

The good / bad lists look bad this week.

The good list (-1000 or more): FL

The bad list (+1000 or more): NV, CA, MA, IL, MO, KY, NC, TX, VA, TN, GA, MN, WA, OH, NY, PA, NJ, MI

MI (the worst) was +6,001 vs FL (the best) at -1,915. Construction, trade, and manufacturing took the lion’s share of the blame with a substantial showing by the service industry as well. As I stated last week, construction, manufacturing, trade, and service will likely remain the most volatile industries for a while. They also are responsible for a significant chunk of total employment.

Aside from the good / bad list (which lags by an additional week), this report was well characterized as “Holding Steady.” This is true even with the upward revision to the prior week. Now it is time for the bad news.

Two things caused me to change my short term outlook for the unemployed.

1. COBRA Subsidy Expiring - Hundred Of Thousands Will Lose Insurance — I’m not sure how I feel about signing over a huge check from taxpayers to the health insurance industry vs. adding a few hundred thousand to the ranks of the uninsured, but I am certain that ignoring the issue is not the correct approach.

2. One Million Will Lose Unemployment Benefits In January Unless Congress Acts — The (recently re-)extended benefits are slated to expire on December 31. Here’s my helpful hint to Congress on this one: if you pass a bill that adds 14 weeks of extensions to unemployment benefits, don’t attach it to an act that expires at the end of the calendar year.

These two things together are enough to make me change my tune. The short term outlook for the unemployed is, once again, dominated by expiring benefits. I believed this was resolved last week, but the issue is more nuanced than I thought. The odds of these being addressed in time are rapidly approaching zero (due to the constraints of the holidays). The long term outlook still has not changed: There is no evident engine for jobs growth. Because such engines are usually much easier to identify in hindsight, I’m far more concerned about the short term problems.

-By crazynutjob.

Read all of crazynutjob’s unemployment report recaps here.

1. the405club reblogged this from crazynutjob and added:

   -By crazynutjob. Read all of crazynutjob’s unemployment report recaps here.

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