Weekly Jobless Claims Challenge 400,000 Yet Again

The weekly jobless claims from the US Labor Department did rise in the last week.  The good news is that there was not a 400,000 handle on the data.  The bad news: the might as well have been back above it.  Jobless claims rose by 26,000 to 397,000 for the last week.

Bloomberg had a consensus expectation of 385,000 for this week.  The prior week’s revision went from 368,000 to a higher reading of 371,000.  The four-week moving average also rose by 3,000 to 392,250.

The army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims fell by 20,000 to 3,771,000.  Keep in mind that there is a one-week lag on continuing claims.

It is almost refreshing to see yet another week under the 400,000 jobless claims.  The sad issue is that this is still close enough to 400,000 that it isn’t helping even if the government keeps counting fewer and fewer belly buttons in the labor force each month.

JON C. OGG