Recent Updates
- US: Housing Starts by State and Region (Mar)
- US: New Res Sales (Mar), S&P Case Shiller Home Price Indexes, FHFA HPI (Feb), Final Building Permits (Mar)
- US: Steel Imports (Mar-Prelim)
- US: Richmond Fed Mfg & Service Sector Surveys (Apr)
- US: Consumer Confidence (Apr)
- Belgium: Business Confidence (Apr)
- US: Regional Building Permits (Mar and YTD)
- Ireland: Bank Lending Survey (Q2)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
U.S. Existing Home Sales & Prices Rise Again
The NAR reported that sales of existing homes increased 1.1% during March (-1.2% y/y) to 5.600 million units (AR)...
PMIs Stabilize or Creep Higher After Drop-Off
In the EMU, both the services and manufacturing sectors took a substantial step down one month ago...
by Tom Moeller January 7, 2016
Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 277,000 (-7.8%y/y) in the week ended January 2 from an unrevised 287,000 the previous week. Consensus expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey looked for 275,000 applications. The four-week moving average eased to 275,750. Though up slightly from the October lows, these figures are close to the fewest claims in 15 years. During the last ten years, there has been a 75% correlation between the level of initial claims and the m/m change in payroll employment.
In the week ending December 26, continuing claims for unemployment insurance rose to 2.230 million (-10.6 y/y) from the previous week's 2.205 million. The four-week moving average rose to 2.218 million. These figures are slightly higher than the low in late October.
The insured rate of unemployment held at 1.6%, also the low 15-year low.
Insured rates of unemployment across states continued to vary. Near the low end of the range were Florida (0.58%), North Carolina (0.72%), Nebraska (0.76%), Georgia (0.82%), Virginia (0.83%), and Tennessee (0.91%). At the high end of the scale were Massachusetts (2.22%), Illinois (2.26%), Connecticut (2.33%), Pennsylvania (2.48%), New Jersey (2.65%), and Alaska (4.32%). The state data are not seasonally adjusted and reported with a two-week lag versus the headline national figure for initial claims. They cover the week ended December 19.
Data on weekly unemployment insurance are contained in Haver's WEEKLY database and they are summarized monthly in USECON. Data for individual states are in REGIONW. The expectations figure is from the Action Economics survey, carried in the AS1REPNA database.
Unemployment Insurance (000s) | 01/02/15 | 12/26/15 | 12/19/15 | Y/Y % | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Initial Claims | 277 | 287 | 267 | -7.8 | 278 | 308 | 344 |
Continuing Claims | -- | 2,230 | 2,205 | -10.6 | 2,267 | 2,599 | 2,979 |
Insured Unemployment Rate (%) | -- | 1.6 | 1.6 |
1.8 |
1.7 | 2.0 | 2.3 |