May 28, 2010
Yes, I’m reusing blogpost titles, but that is only because the papers appear to be repeating their bad reporting. The Labor Department releaased its data on weekly unemployment claims on Thursday and it was moderately bad news. New claims were at 460,000 for the week, with claims for the prior week revised upward by 3,000 to 374,000. This put the 4-week moving average at 456,500.
Generally claims have to be below 400,000 a week before we see job growth. The current level is consistent with we would expect to see in a relatively mild recession. The 4-week average only reached this level in the 2001 recession in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attack even though the economy continued to shed jobs for another two years.
Usually newspapers devote all or part of an article to reporting on weekly unemployment insurance claims. However, that was not the case this week.
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