The good news from the US Department of Labor is that the old floor of 400,000 in weekly jobless claims may now be acting as a bit of a ceiling in the jobless claims arena. The latest data showed that weekly claims fell 5,000 to 382,000.
The four-week average fell to 385,250 and that was a low of more than two years.
The army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims (with a one-week lag) came down by only 2,000 to 3.72 million. That also appears to be the lowest in more than two years.
The unfortunate part of this is that the real unemployment rate is not being helped by these figures. Workers keep falling out of the criteria that would be deemed as being unemployed, and that is what has driven the unemployment rate lower.
The old rule was that a neutral scenario for unemployment was a weekly claims count under 300,000 but that may be different now in the new normal.
These figures are still to the point that it is somewhat like telling your kids that get two gifts each at the store without limits. If they are too young to know what a dollar store is, you are still a hero in their eyes.
JON C. OGG
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