As you can see from the numbers below, the new bench mark for first time unemployment benefit claims, is now 375,800 (a sex week average) after 29 weeks of 400,000 first timers.
Not to be a kill-joy. but this number, reported every Thursday morning, tells us next to nothing about job growth or the state of the economy. If firings and layoffs have "bottomed out," this number will be on the low side while reflecting a very poor employment circumstance.
Tomorrow, the first Friday of the new month, the Feds released the so-called "new unemployment rate." The rate for last month (December of '11) was 8.5% according to the Obama government, but that is measured against a smaller workforce. If we counted unemployment using the same methodology as 5 years ago, the rate would be 10% according to Gallup.
It is the election season. Expect the Obama people to play these numbers for all their worth. Every Administration does.
Historical First Time record:
Jan 28 367,000
Jan 21 Adjusted up to 379,000: initial report was 377,000, an increase of 21,000 or 25,000 higher than the original report of the 14th.
Jan 14 352,000 first Labor report: (week ending) first report numbers are 355,000 on Fox, 352,000 from Labor. A 2nd revision brought this week's number to 356,000
Jan 7 399,000 unadjusted. I expect this to be 403,000 after revision.
The actual adjusted number was 402,000.
Dec. 31 372,000 unadjusted (this report) . This was revised to 375,000.
Dec. 24 387,000 adjusted from initial report of 381,000
Dec. 17 366,000 / first adjust to 364,000 but later reported back to 366,000
Dec. 10 368,000 (I actually do not remember this report.)
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