Global Economic News and Analysis
by Lee Adler, The Wall Street Examiner The Labor Department reported today that seasonally adjusted (SA) first time claims for unemployment were up by 34,000 to 386,000. Unfortunately, both the total and the change are categorically and demonstrably false, just like last week. The seasonal adjustment process applied to weekly data is the problem. As I …
Continue reading “Unemployment Claims: Worse than Expected but Improvement Trend Still Intact”
by Lee Adler, The Wall Street Examiner The reporting of first time claims today was absolutely absurd. Media reports shouted that claims had reached a new low. The only problem was that the report was categorically false. The huge drop in claims to a reported 350,000 for the week ended July 7 was purely a result …
Continue reading “Initial Unemployment Claims: Mainstream Reports are False and Absurd”
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims exceeded levels of the corresponding week in the previous year for the first time in two years. Yet the non-farm payrolls numbers grew by a healthy 244,000. The bizarre contradictions were emphasized by sharp drops in commodities, smaller declines in stocks, and disappointing reports on productivity and from the ISM non-manufcturing survey.
The Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released this morning for last week. Claims rose 43,000 from an upward revision of the previous week to 431,000. That is a 10% increase for the week and a 4-week moving average increase of 5.4%.
Economic data this week, on average, is consistent with weak economic growth. GDP was moderately strong and employment data was weak. At least for unemployment, you might blame it on the weather.