The data from the Labor Department on weekly jobless claims has been released. We are seeing a slight rise by 4,000 to 558,000 for week. The four-week average rose by 8,500 to 565,000. This gain of 4,000 is a tad worse than expected as economists from a Dow Jones survey put the level at -5,000, but frankly is close enough that this will not be a huge influence. The army of the continuing jobless claims for those repeatedly taking unemployment benefits has come back down by 141,000 to a level of 6.202 million. We are also getting past some of that seasonality in the reports, and that will help the apples to apples comparisons.
Our big question on all of these jobless claims and also on the unemployment is just how many people are really just dropping out of the system as their benefits have run the course.
JON C. OGG
AUGUST 13, 2009
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