Don't look now, but initial unemployment claims are actually starting to offer reason for cautious optimism. The new report from the Department of Labor is not only encouraging, it's unexpectedly so.
First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly in the latest week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The number of initial claims in the week ending Aug. 4 fell 6,000 to 361,000. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to rise 5,000 to 370,000.
To reiterate the point I make every Thursday morning, it's worth remembering that week-to-week results can vary widely, and it's best not to read too much significance into any one report.
In terms of metrics, when jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it's considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape, and when the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are being created rather quickly. We've only managed to dip below the 370,000 threshold five times in the last 18 weeks, but here's the good news: we've been below 370,000 in four of the last five weeks.
And with that, here's the chart showing weekly, initial unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007. (Remember, unlike the monthly jobs chart, a lower number is good news.) For context, I've added an arrow to show the point at which President Obama's Recovery Act began spending money.
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Despite the best efforts by Republicans to impose draconian austerity and sabotage the American economy for their own political gain in November, jobs are being created and the recovery continues. Republicans bashing the President for his jobs policies are going to have to surrender to reality soon enough and change their talking points or risk being laughed off the national stage. Millions of jobs have been created, something every Republican has consistently lied about. Now is not the time to cut off the growth of jobs with a toxic conservative agenda of spending cuts and more government handouts to billionaires. - Principled Progressive
How much of that can be attributed to the transportation bill signed last month?
Zero.
That's an interesting question, Zeta11. Looking at it from a reverse angle, if the transportation bill had not been taken up and passed, jobless claims numbers would definitely have started to climb higher; also, the bill apparently has a significant job creation component to it.
Good article on it here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-usa-transportation-house-idUSBRE85S16K20120629
Just think where this chart (and the economy) would be if The Obomination had not capitulated to the repukes, DINOs, and co-presidents Snowe & Collins and had an initial stimulus that was more appropriate to the needs of the country. That is, about 3 times larger and without the relatively non-stimulating tax cuts.
Sad Old Veteran - there would have been no stimulus at all without the votes of those three GOP senators - Democrats did not yet have a 60-vote majority - and there was no way in the world the GOP was going to provide those votes in support of a larger stimulus. Thank goodness the president doesn't engage in the kind of magical thinking that would get a "right on!" from certain crowds, but accomplishes jack-all in the real world.
A majority of 100 senators is 51, not 60! At least not when there is a repuknican president and a majority of senators are repuknican.
Obviously the Administration is cooking the books to create a false sense of improvement going into November.
Building has picked up in my neighborhood. People who can are taking advantage of all time low interest rates. I was recently able to refinance, lower my interest rate dramatically, keep my payment about the same, and make some real energy efficiency alterations my home. My monthly expenses will go down after the improvements. As my banker said, "win, win, win." Many others in my neighborhood are also improving their own homes, which is usually the first sign of recovery from a recession.
Ron, I'll second that. I refi'd my current home, bought a 115-yo adobe in the town I'll be retiring to, and have been making improvements on both. Looking around the small town where the "new" home is, there are a lot of improvements going on in a rather poor community.
Every Thursday morning, I see these numbers on MSNBC during business before the bell. Around the same time, I've taken to switching over to Fox to see how the F&F idiots will spin them. It is one of the best examples of how, if you watch Fox, you literally live in a different world than the rest of us. When the numbers get better, they just move the bar on what "better" means. Orwellian is too kind a word.
It's important to note that initial claims in July are also highly volatile due to the seasonal closings of automobile manufacturing plants (which you can see if you look at the weekly claims over the month -- jumping from 352,000 to 388,000 to 357,000) since these are hard to predict for seasonal adjustments. However, this also means that this week's numbers were the first non-screwy figure since June, so it's still a positive.
More smoke and mirrors from the Grubmint. From http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Labor Force Barely Increased in Nearly 4 Years. The labor force peaked at 154,875,000 in October of 2008, exactly on the cusp of the great recession.
The current labor force is 155,013,0000 barely above what it was nearly 4 years ago. . Bernanke believes the labor force should be growing at about 125,000 a month. The number is probably closer to 75,000 a month because of boomer retirements.
At 75,000 per month since October 2008, the labor force should have risen by 3,450,000 not 138,000. The result is a huge unwarranted drop in the stated unemployment rate. This puts the real unemployment rate at about 11%.
As Paul Craig Roberts tells it: the government that lies to you about WMD in Iraq, about Iraq's al Qaeda connections, 9/11, about the Taliban in Afghanistan, about Osama bin Laden, about Libya and Gadhafi, about Iranian nukes, about Syria, about Pakistan, about Yemen and Somalia, about Bradley Manning, about Julian Assange and Wikileaks, about everything under the sun, also lies to you about jobs, unemployment, economic recovery, GDP growth, the "terrorist threat," everything. Try to find anything that the government has said over the past 6 presidential terms that is not a lie.
The solution, Gary Johnson Libertarian candidate. Sorry Ron Paul supporters but he's locked out except as a write- in candidate. Since when has a write-in come close to winning or even made a blip?