Jobless claims have gone up
Despite last week's good job market news, new unemployment claims increased by 24000
This chart shows the number of initial and continued jobless claims over the past two years. Numbers have dropped considerably since 2009, but new jobless claims jumped by 24,000 last week.
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Today’s jobless claims report showed an increase to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims jumped back near the so closely watched 400K level.
Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment increased 24,000 to 399,000 claims from last week’s revised 375,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 19,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.9%.
Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.
Currently there are some 3.45 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 3.77 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.23 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.