Preparednessdaily.com

From The Market Ticker

Interesting report….

In the week ending February 4, the advance figure for   seasonally adjusted initial claims was 358,000, a decrease of 15,000   from the previous week’s revised figure of 373,000. The 4-week moving average   was 366,250, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised average of   377,250.

What’s the raw number look like?

The advance number of actual   initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 397,810 in the week   ending February 4, a decrease of 24,477 from the previous week. There were 440,706   initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.

Ok, that looks fairly decent.

But what I want to look at is the big table, as that’s the “big deal”, although we’re (of course) a couple of weeks behind.  And here we see that the numbers are basically flat, with a +7982 figure at the bottom; drops in initial and EUC benefits were offset by more extended benefits.

The only caution on this report is that if there’s more long-term unemployment (but the rate itself is stable) that’s not positive.  It’s not as negative as adding more unemployed would be, but long-term unemployment is far more damaging from a budgetary perspective than those who lose their job but find a new one in a reasonably-rapid timeframe.