More Misleading Unemployment Claims

Thursday, August 13, 2009, 11:19 am, by cmartenson

Initial jobless claims rose last week, a bit higher than expected, but that's not what was featured at the top of the article below.

Instead, the claim was made that because the number of people on the unemployment rolls dropped, that this was a signal that the labor market may be stabilizing.

This is an inappropriate and misleading claim to make.



U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 558,000 Last Week

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing first-time claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, while the number of people on unemployment rolls dropped to the lowest since April, signaling the labor market may be stabilizing as the recession eases.

Applications rose to 558,000 in the week ended Aug. 8 from a revised 554,000 the week before, the Labor Department said today in Washington, while staying under 600,000 for a sixth time. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits fell by 141,000 in the week ended Aug. 1 to 6.2 million.

The really interesting part about this is that a huge amount of electronic ink has been dedicated lately to the understanding that dwindling unemployment rolls is being driven to an enormous extent by the fact that benefits are running out for people.
Link