The seasonal adjustments were kind to this week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. The new claims number dropped to 454k while last week’s number was revised up 3k. Another report and we are again close to where we were 2 weeks prior (457k). New claims were at the low end of the Bloomberg consensus range of 450k to 475k, though this is widely being reported as a solid trouncing of expectations. From the report:

In the week ending July 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 454,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 475,000. The 4-week moving average was 466,000, a decrease of 1,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.4 percent for the week ending June 26, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 26 was 4,413,000, a decrease of 224,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,637,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,554,000, a decrease of 18,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,572,750.

Recall that we are waiting for the new claims number (seasonally adjusted) to make a convincing move through the 400k mark. This is the level that is correlated with sustainable jobs growth. The unadjusted number, corresponding to actual people, did not make a move down. Quite the opposite:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 463,560 in the week ending July 3, an increase of 22,560 from the previous week. There were 581,145 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.3 percent during the week ending June 26, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,294,188, a decrease of 36,647 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.5 percent and the volume was 6,061,619.

I suppose we should look at the good news: compared to years past, fewer employers moved their job cuts up to avoid paying holiday pay on the 4th of July weekend.

The good / bad lists look a little worse than last week:

The good list (-1000 or more): PA, TN, IL, IA

The bad list (+1000 or more): RI, NH, CA, OR, KY, CT, FL, NY, MA, NJ

NJ (the worst) was +7,951 vs PA (the best) at -2,841. School closings popped up in three of the bad lists’ comments. Trade had a bias toward the good lists.

In other news, there’s very little other news. There are still articles and blog posts being written on extending unemployment benefits, but very few seem to predict the passage of a bill. We did get a headline about being reprimanded by the OECD. Cynics might find hope in the fact that banker layoffs are making headlines. Other cynics might expect congress to move only for employed bankers.

One report takes us only 3k below the point where we were two weeks ago. The swing in the headline number was quite large, but the celebratory headlines are jumping the gun just a bit.

-By crazynutjob