Global| Aug 12 2010U.S. Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance Are Highest Since February
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
The bad news about the labor market continued today. The Labor Department's report that initial claims for jobless insurance rose to 484,000 last week from an upwardly revised 482,000 brought them to the highest level since February. [...]
The bad news about the labor market continued today. The Labor Department's
report that initial claims for jobless insurance rose to 484,000 last week from
an upwardly revised 482,000 brought them to the highest level since February.
The four-week moving average of initial claims which smoothes out some of the
w/w volatility rose to 473,500, also the highest level since February.
Nonetheless, these figures remain down from the recession peak of 651,000
reached in March of 2009. The latest weekly figure was higher than Consensus
expectations for 465,000 claims.
Continuing claims for unemployment insurance during the latest week fell to 4.452M and remained off by one-third from the June '09 peak. The overall decline is a function of an improved job market but also reflects the exhaustion of 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. The four-week average of continuing claims fell to 4.519M. This series dates back to 1966.
Ongoing claims do not reflect those who receive extended benefits. Extended benefits for unemployment insurance jumped to 788,128, near the record high. These figures do not include the 4,493,351 benefit recipients under state administered "EUC" emergency programs, but paid for by the Federal government. These benefits recently were extended.
The insured unemployment rate remained slipped to 3.5%. It reached a high of 4.9% during May of 2009. During the last ten years, there has been a 96% correlation between the level of the insured unemployment rate and the overall rate of unemployment published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 24 were in Puerto Rico (6.8%), Pennsylvania (4.9), California (4.7), Oregon (4.7), New Jersey (4.6), Alaska (4.4), Connecticut (4.4), Nevada (4.4), Wisconsin (4.2), and Rhode Island (4.1). The lowest insured unemployment rates were in Virginia (1.9), Texas (2.4), Tennessee (2.6), Maine (2.8), Ohio (3.0), Georgia (3.1), Maryland (3.1), Florida (3.3), New York (3.6) and North Carolina (3.6). These data are not seasonally adjusted but the overall insured unemployment rate is.
The unemployment insurance claims data is available in Haver's WEEKLY database and the state data is in the REGIONW database.
We Do Not Have Liftoff from the American Enterprise Institute can be found here.
| Unemployment Insurance (000s) | 08/07/10 | 07/31/10 | 07/24/10 | Y/Y | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial Claims | 484 | 482 | 460 | -13.1% | 572 | 419 | 321 |
| Continuing Claims | -- | 4,452 | 4,570 | -27.3 | 5,809 | 3,340 | 2,549 |
| Insured Unemployment Rate (%) | -- | 3.5 | 3.6 | 4.6 (7/2009) | 4.4 | 2.5 | 1.9 |
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
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