"Economists are pessimists: they've predicted 8 of the last 3 depressions."
--Barry Asmus

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

First Time Jobless Claims

First off, let's review the week ending 3/5. We had a seasonally adjusted 397,000 new initial claims (missing expectations by 12,000). In unadjusted numbers, 406,096 people filed initial claims for unemployment insurance (up 52,147 from the previous week). The state program insured unemployment level (which functions on a two week delay) came in at a seasonally-adjusted 3,771,000 (down 20,000), but the unadjusted numbers saw a level of 4,442,438 (up 97,576). Finally, as of 2/19, the total number of people claiming unemployment benefits under any program (not just state programs) was 8,772,818.
Looking to the week ending 3/12, the Econoday-surveyed analysts are looking for seasonally-adjusted first-time claims to fall to 385,000.
We now turn to the US Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. The 3/5 initial claims were adjusted upwards to 401,000 (a 4000 increase to last week's already disappointing results), but the 3/12 advance seasonally-adjusted figure for initial claims came in at 385,000 (right in line with expectations). Also, the unadjusted number of initial claims was 372,370.
The state program insured unemployment level for 2/28 was adjusted upwards to 3,786,000. For 3/5, the seasonally-adjusted level is being reported at 3,706,000. The unadjusted level for state program insured unemployment claims comes in at 4,276,916 (down 165,522).
As of 2/26, the total number of persons claiming benefits in all programs was 8,953,610.

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