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The 4-week moving average of claims last week was very close to its post-recession low. Nonseasonally adjusted claims last week were actually 14% lower than they were a year ago.
Compared to the size of the workforce, the current level of claims is historically lo, as the above chart shows.
But thanks to generous extensions of unemployment insurance and the exodus of 5 million or so from the labor force, the percent of the labor force receiving unemployment compensation remains historically high, even though it has declined significantly in the past two years.
This is one problem area of the labor market: 2 million people are still being paid unemployment insurance via the Emergency Claims provision after exhausting their regular state benefits. The other problem, of course, is that the pace of hirings has been lackluster. The fiscal cliff deal extended the emergency claims provision for another year; otherwise it would have now expired.
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>The 4-week moving average of claims last week was very close to its post-recession low. Nonseasonally adjusted claims last week were actually 14% lower than they were a year ago.<
The seasonal adjustments for initial claims are almost as misleading as the jobs situation report. The seasonal pattern is that jobs drop off dramatically in January, all the growth is from February through June, with the rest of the year flat-lining more or less.
This astoundingly fewer job losses is for only the first week. If it keeps up for the whole month of January I believe we will see very good job growth February through June.
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