Jobless claims: good news all around – by New Deal democrat This was one of the best weeks as to jobless claims all year. Initial claims declined -17,000 to 202,000, a tie for the 2nd lowest number in 10 months. The four week average declined -7,750 to 213,250. With the usual one week delay, continuing claims rose 20,000 to 1.876 million: Even more importantly for forecasting purposes, the YoY% changes both for the weekly number and the four week average were negative, i.e., lower than one year ago, at -1.9% and -0.1% respectively. Meanwhile continuing claims, while elevated at +17.2%, are nonetheless lower on a YoY basis than at any point in the past 8 months: This makes initial claims an outright positive for the economy in the
Topics:
NewDealdemocrat considers the following as important: 2023, Hot Topics, jobless claims, politics, US EConomics
This could be interesting, too:
Robert Skidelsky writes Lord Skidelsky to ask His Majesty’s Government what is their policy with regard to the Ukraine war following the new policy of the government of the United States of America.
NewDealdemocrat writes JOLTS revisions from Yesterday’s Report
Joel Eissenberg writes No Invading Allies Act
Ken Melvin writes A Developed Taste
Jobless claims: good news all around
– by New Deal democrat
This was one of the best weeks as to jobless claims all year. Initial claims declined -17,000 to 202,000, a tie for the 2nd lowest number in 10 months. The four week average declined -7,750 to 213,250. With the usual one week delay, continuing claims rose 20,000 to 1.876 million:
Even more importantly for forecasting purposes, the YoY% changes both for the weekly number and the four week average were negative, i.e., lower than one year ago, at -1.9% and -0.1% respectively. Meanwhile continuing claims, while elevated at +17.2%, are nonetheless lower on a YoY basis than at any point in the past 8 months:
This makes initial claims an outright positive for the economy in the near future. And it cuts against the idea that continuing claims were forecasting a recession.
Since initial claims lead the unemployment rate, this also adds a level of comfort to the forecast that the elevated comparisons earlier this year will not trigger the “Sahm rule” as to the YoY change in the unemployment rate:
To reiterate, simply: good news all around.
Initial jobless claims confirm benign employment conditions, Angry Bear, New Deal democrat