Claims for first-time jobless benefits rose last week reversing a recent decline. Unemployment claims jumped to a six week high of 399,000 last week. The number will be adjusted to over 400,000 during the next five days and reported by some media outlets along with next weeks report.
Here is how the past five weekly reports have run. Note: all numbers are seasonally adjusted. How does that effect the weekly reports? The weekly report for Jan 7 gives us a typical answer of sorts: The actual number of folks making request for first time benefits (week ending Jan 7 and without any seasonal adjustment) was 642,000 for the week. Why we don’t simply report actual numbers such as this, with appropriated and accompaning explanation is beyond me, but all Administrations do it. Suffice it to say that the jobless rate is much worse than the Obama people want you to believe, during this campaign season.
Jan 7 399,000 unadjusted. I expect this to be 403,000 after revision, based on past reports.
Dec. 31 372,000 adjusted upwards revised to 375,000.
Dec. 24 381,000 adjusted upwards to 387,000
Dec. 17 366,000 / first adjust to 364,000 but later reported back to 366,000 Note: this number is highly problematic.
Dec. 10 368,000 (I actually do not remember this report.)