Here's the data from FRED:
Posted on 02/07/2013 6:42:34 AM PST by traumer
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Jobless claims fall, trend reading at near five-year low ReutersReuters – 41 minutes ago
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A job seeker (R) meets with a prospective employer at a career fair in New York City, October 24, 2012. REUTERS/Mike SegarView Photo
A job seeker (R) meets with a prospective employer at a career fair in New York City, October 24, 2012. REUTERS/Mike Segar
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week and a trend reading hit a near five-year low, pointing to ongoing healing in the labor market.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped by 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 366,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's claims figure was revised to show 3,000 more new claims than initially reported.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected 360,000 claims last week.
Claims were volatile in January due to the timing of holidays and the dates on which weeks ended, but a Labor Department analyst said some of that volatility appeared to be receding. The analyst said there was nothing unusual in the data, and no states estimated their readings.
The four-week moving average for new claims, a gauge of the trend in layoffs, dropped 2,250 to 350,500. That was the lowest level since March 2008, suggesting a steady improvement in labor market conditions.
The claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid increased 8,000 to 3.22 million in the week ended January 26.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
OK I heard on the news this morning it was UP....................
Initial Claims Miss For Second Week In A Row As Nonfarm Productivity Tumbles Most Since 2008
Might that not also suggest that more people than ever have run out of benefits and failed to requalify?
My only question is how long the MSM will try to blow smoke up our rear ends on the economy. Their reporting on it has long surpassed ridiculous.
Hey kids! It’s “Fun With Numbers” Thursday!
It’s insane. We’re all out here in the real world and know what’s happening. Amazing.
Obviously, there is no one at Yahoo who can read these BS stats from BLS. Last week’s jobless rate was revised UP by 3,000, as this week’s will probably be. To see a silver lining in these pathetic numbers is to see a pile of manure and look for a pony.
Fewer people are losing their jobs, which is great news!
But the labor participation rate (the number of people WITH jobs) has dropped steadily since BHO took office, down 3.3% or around 6 million workers.
So NET job losses are quite troubling.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Bump.
It is hard to continue to see a bright light in any of this.
Dems just want to grow government to control us all. The GOP just wants to outsource, leaving us all to be controlled.
How about AMERICANS, SPENDING MONEY IN AMERICA, TO HIRE AMERICANS.
Seriously.
“unexpected”
Drink up.
Being from a rural area I have an understanding of how manure spreaders work so I see the spread of Beltway BS here.
As noted in post#3, this is a numbers game that the MSM is playing.
See: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2986207/posts
for an explanation
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped by 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 366,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s claims figure was revised to show 3,000 more new claims than initially reported.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected 360,000 claims last week.
Some fun with numbers...
In the last 4+ years unemployment has gone down, way down, and then basically has been sliding sideways week after week. Sure the numbers tick up a few thousand, or down a few thousand each measuring time, but the trend has been very, very clear — we are going nowhere economically.
There are no jobs and nothing is improving despite these little teeny sideways incremental shifts. That everybody is making such big news out of these lateral moves is profoundly discouraging.
The economy STILL sucks. There are no jobs and nobody is demanding better from Obama who keeps playing the role of David Copperfield by keeping people's focus off the economy.
Obama keeps pointing attention to the Boy Scouts, Guns, Immigration, Women in Combat, etc., all important issues on their own, but why are Americans, the MSM, not demanding that Obama focus on the economy. Why are they not asking why things are NOT getting any better after 4+ years!
I just talked to my friends back in Silicon Valley. They are ALL scared or already out of work. We may be looking at a repeat of 2002 in high tech.
The MSM is playing “Baghdad Bob” on the economy.
They want to keep you “in the game” as long as possible to milk as much out of the economy as they can before the crash.
They REALLY hate “preppers”, because we know the game they’re playing, and are planning not to be “in the same boat” when it crashes.
I saw at least two arrogant condescending “freepers” last week poo-pooing any bad news because the economy (to them) is obviously improving.
They haven’t seemed to check in on this thread yet.
Found ‘em, cc’d here.
They derogatorily call our comments a “conspiracy theory”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2984167/posts
Well if the Ministry of Propaganda says it’s true, who am I to argue?
What they meant was more people gave up looking for work. Took awhile to learn how this administration talks but if you just assume everything has spin on it or is a lie or both it makes it easier to understand.
Any positive graphs are “pimped out” for obvious reasons by investment bankers and the like. Things maybe slightly improving, but the fundamentals are lacking (Especially with the current government’s “hand” on manipulating currency/regulations). Investment bankers still need to make money though, so accentuate the positives and downplay the negatives.
They’ve got at least two alleged conservatives here pimping for them.
Yeah, you’re always going to get those type of comments, but there were a lot of other very good comments on that thread.
Obama’s economic malaise.
The population is growing at a far faster rate than we are creating jobs.
Your metric, labor participation rate, is the key people should be focusing on (along with U6).
Here's the data from FRED:
Lets see, does anyone else think tha the insane numbers of people on “disability” might have something to do with it? Also just plain going up and living on other government plans? When there is no incentive to work and provide, many people will choose it. There is no pride any more, and no shame.
Initial unemployment insurance claims fell by 5,000, to 366,000, in the week ended 2 February. The four-week moving average decreased 2,250, to 352,750—the lowest since March 2008.
- Initial unemployment insurance claims fell by 5,000, to 366,000, in the week ended 2 February.
- The four-week moving average decreased 2,250, to 352,750—the lowest since March 2008.
- Continuing benefits programs reported 8,000 more claimants in the week ended 26 January, bringing the total up to 3.2 million. Regular benefits typically last for a period of 26 weeks; claimants are required to check in weekly to provide updates on their job search to receive compensation.
- Emergency unemployment compensation (EUC), which immediately follows the exhaustion of regular benefits, was provided to 1.83 million people in the week ended 19 January—a drop of 288,471.
The four-week moving average fell to its lowest level since March 2008. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is how slow the recovery is proceeding. The four-week moving average is down only 25,000 from a year ago. Meanwhile, the January unemployment rate edged up a 10th of a percentage point, to 7.9%, down from 8.3% a year earlier.
The recent changes seen in emergency unemployment compensation and extended benefits data may reflect the effects of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. These programs had been slated to expire at the end of December; however, they were extended until the end of 2013, as part of the fiscal cliff agreement. Continuing claims and initial claims were not affected by the fiscal cliff deal. The only programs threatened by the cliff were those serving people who had been receiving unemployment benefits for upwards of 26 weeks.
January payroll employment was nothing special, at 157,000. We are expecting about the same (150,000, to be exact) for February.
I wasn’t “poo-pooing” [sic] the “bad news” because I think the economy is improving.
Rather, I was trying to point out the sadness of the paranoid thinking that the statisticians in the bowels of the BLS are on some sort of PR crusade to make the economy look better than it really is. The numbers are the numbers, they’re not misrepresenting them for politics, they’re doing the best they can.
Also, you should learn the difference between the weekly jobless claims data which is the gross data of new claims of benefits, and the monthly unemployment figure, which nets the newly hired from the newly jobless to come up with a “net” figure. That is the reason why you can have positive numbers in the “initial claims” data week after week, but in the monthly report show the non-farm payrolls rising.
I have to go poo-poo something else now, but I’ll be back later to check for your apology.
“I have to go poo-poo something else now, but I’ll be back later to check for your apology.”
Not a chance.
Thanks for proving my point.
Great concept, once one negotiates the tortuous labyrinth of things you can get sued for and pays out the small fortune in obamacare.
Me, If you want to work for my company, you're going to be a subcontractor and deal with your own stuff.
In the meantime, the government will be the biggest employee growth sector, because the rest of us have to have money left over from a finite resource when the day is done. They can just print more and promise it out to whomever they please, and make rules about who does or doesn't get hired that would land a private employer in court.
Jobless claims fall and welfare claime increased,so much for math.
I meant to say that the EPR is the lowest EVER!
I originally was going to post an image of just 16 years, but then realized I could get a graph that covered back to 84.
It will only get worse.
Indeed by the day.
Wow, I never realized it was so bad.
At this rate Obama will have the labor participation rate down to 61.5% when he leave office in 2017.
That is frighten scary. Cool graphs. Whee did you get them?
Actually it's not even close to the lowest rate ever. Here's the data from FRED back to 1970.
Got to the St. Louis Fed data site called FRED. 60,000+ economic time series there.
Thanks, interesting how the government actually posts the information needed to refute the Obama administrations claims yet the MSM cannot seem to find it so they just spout whatever they are fed.
I guess they know that the vast number of Americans will never waste their time to find the truth. They are too busy watching what’s on the latest reality show and reading about who’s who in the up coming Grammys.
Thanks for the welcome. From looking at your bio, you have been here since FreeRepublic started. That’s a looking time. Clinton was still president, and Obama was still racking up debt on his credit card. A lot has happened since you joined.
Thanks again, I guess I’ll see this comment posted sometime today, because I am still on probation. Hey you may know. How many times must I post a comment before I am off probation?
Something doesn’t jive. Your chart has us above 64%, where as my chart from BLS has us currently at 63.6%.
I also only had number from BLS back to 1984. 1970 was bad, but there were a lot of other factors involved back then like those considered part of the labor force that was tracked were a much smaller total number because the population was much smaller.
There is 110 million more people in America today. No matter how you look at it there are well over 100 million Americans of working age who do NOT have a job.
Compare that to 1970, and you will see that there are more than 40 million more Americans unemployed today.
I have no idea how many times it takes to get off probation. Back when I joined there was no probation. Things have changed a lot in the last 15 years.
Yes, there are a lot of unemployed (I never said there weren't) and the labor market could certainly be much better. One thing that is not taken into account by most is the retirement of the Baby Boomer cohort which is the biggest reason why the participation rate got so high. As you can see from the FRED chart, participation peaking prior to 2000 and has been on a declining trend ever since.
For some reason that first FRED chart stopped in 2011. The one li just posted back to the 1940's is current through Jan 2013 and also shows 63.6% as the current rate.
As an FYI there is a link at the FRED site that allows you to download the data to Excel. It’s on the left just under the chart heading of: Graph: Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate (CIVPART)
“The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week and a trend reading hit a near five-year low, a sign the grinding recovery in the labor market remains on track” source “http://finance.yahoo.com/news/...";
“Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped by 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 366,000, the Labor Department said.”
“The four-week moving average for new claims, a gauge of the trend in layoffs, dropped 2,250 to 350,500. That was the lowest level since March 2008.”
Obama created 5 million jobs in last 4 years! Wow!
So at best, 4 weeks at 350,000 = 1,400,000 per month!
So far research shows the best MONTH of job creation was February of 2011 261,000 (source “http://www.nationalreview.com/...";)
1,400,000 - 261,000 = 1,139,000 without jobs just for that month.
That’s not how it works. The Initial Claims is one half of the equation as thousands of people are hired and fired every week. The NFP data is the NET job growth (or contraction). So, roughly, hirings less firings.
1.) One was the teenage unemployment rate- it never recovered to the extent of other demographic groups. Then when the Democrats took over congress in 2006 and raised the minimum wage, the unemployment rate for teenagers rose again. This is troubling for our economy for the next 50 years. Studies show that teenagers that work are more productive and higher wage earners in their adult life. We already see these decade 2000's teenagers are having trouble getting and keeping jobs in their 20's.
2.) Another warning we missed was that the PPI exceeded the CPI for much of the 2000's. This put huge pressure on the workforce which is why the US is the most productive country in the world. However, indications are this ship has already sailed... see today's forth quarter production numbers.
3.) Related to point #2 is commodity inflation. While the government was trying to deflect high oil prices on greedy oil companies and speculators, they ignored the impact of the weak dollar. Consumers did not mind because the fed was pumping so much money into housing they were having an equity field-day.
Having now said all that, WHERE ARE THE REPUBLICANS??
Why are they not - daily - putting the screws to Obama on the economy? Why? Remember when Pelosi did this constantly with Bush -- at 5% unemployment?
There simply is NO message at all from Republicans let alone a sustained message of attack on the Obama's economy.
So the reality is, is that nothing will change until the economy finally craters and there is real, tangible, misery. Right now it's all being masked by Monopoly money that's being printed to keep the EBT cards going and the UE benefits, and the disability benefits, and the Food Stamps, etc.
One day soon this house of cards will come tumbling down. It will be sudden, and it will be painful.
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