Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (09/22/2011)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Employment and Training Administration, Department of Labor

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending September 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 423,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 432,000. The 4-week moving average was 421,000, an increase of 500 from the previous week's revised average of 420,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week ending September 10, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending September 10 was 3,727,000, a decrease of 28,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,755,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,742,000, a decrease of 6,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,748,500.

Read more: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/eta20111374.htm

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Down 9,000 from last week's revised figure, but still well over 400,000.

[stockholmer]

1. this will be revised upwards, there's no way 400K+ per week levels can continue & Obama re-elected

[Po_d Mainiac]

2. The numbers were also a clean miss, to the down side..n/t

[stockholmer]

3. plus............. 103,000 Unemployed Fall Off Extended Benefits

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/initial-claims-miss-consensus-prior-bad-data-amplified-103000-unemployed-fall-extended-benefits


Another day, another chance for the BLS to fudge jobs data by revising last week's claims miss to an even worse number: sure enough last week's -428K drop was just revised to -432K. Which means that this week's consensus miss, which was at 420K, is irrelevant, with the weekly number coming at 423K because all headlines will blare than claims actually declined by 9K.

The game has become so old (and we mean old: the BLS has been doing this very same fudge for 2 years in a row now) we are stunned anyone falls for it. And one thing that will also most certainly be ignored is that the 423K number is really 427K because as the BLS reported, a -3,776 drop in claims in Texas was due to "Fewer layoffs due to holiday" - well the holiday is over.

Lastly, and most troubling for the economy is that another massive 103,000 people dropped off extended benefit claims in one week. Just as troubling is that 1.7 million people have dropped off the government's dole in the past year as can be seen in the chart below: these are people that haven't gotten a job, they have just stopped being counted by the govt.

snip

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. My sister is one of those --

She was notified that September was her last payment. She has only 3k in the bank, and is facing losing her house in a few months if she cannot find a job right away.

It is looking grim. :(

[pinqy]

5. Wow...discrediting himself in the first sentance.

BLS does not report on Unemployment Insurance and has nothing to do with the weekly report. Are you really going to trust a person who doesn't even know who does the report he's citing?

The Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration puts out the UI claims report. They have 3 days to get all the reports from the states and publish. Of course there will be revisions, and of course most will be for more claims. "We didn't include X claims from our submission" is going to happen a lot more often than "We included too many claims."

And where on earth is he getting the idea that none of the drop in extended benefits was due to getting a job? We know how many people are no longer recieving the extended benefits, but we don't know why.

[stockholmer]

7. you're not in reality if you think that more than a just a small minority of those who have lost UE

benefits due to the 99 week cut-off have done so due to finding a job. The author never said that this BLS report was the source of this number. That is a strawman argument. Workforce participation rates (the lowest in 50 years) go a long way towards showing this. Even if you take into account a lower number of workers due to more students entering college due to no jobs to be found, and also due to an aging work force, this still is not balanced by the fewer number of new jobs being created. Furthermore, these additional students are ringing up massive new debts, and many elderly are working longer to service the debts they themselves have accrued. In addition, fewer workers means less FICA taxes paid into the current social safety net programmes, undermining these even more.

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Here is an article from the non partisan OpenCongress explaining this:


http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2138-99ers-Crisis-About-to-Get-Much-Worse



I’ve been trying to make the point that the 99er problem — people exhausting all unemployment benefits without finding a job — is about to get much worse because we’re approaching 99 weeks from the brunt of the recession unemployment spike. Congress is not planning to add more weeks of unemployment benefits and the Federal Reserve is projecting the unemployment rate to stay pretty much where it is for the next year. Putting it all together, this means that for the foreseeable future, there will no jobs and no government support for the millions of 99ers.

This graph from Calculated Risk http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/12/here-come-99ers.html showing three years of job losses makes it very clear — millions of people who lost their jobs in the deepest part of the recession are about to be dropped off a cliff:




snip

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Here is an MSNBC article from July, 2011, dealing with this as well:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43675816/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/jobless-ers-have-fallen-though-safety-net/


In 2010, an estimated 3.9 million unemployed Americans exhausted unemployment benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group that campaigns for lower-wage workers.

More than 14 percent of the U.S. unemployed have been out of a job for 99 weeks, or longer.

May saw the second-highest percentage and outright number of Americans out of a job for that period or more since weekly data was first collected in 1967. The highest was in April. Payrolls data for June, due Friday, is unlikely to show a major change in the labor market after the overall jobless rate rose to 9.1 percent in May, economists say.

Many so-called "99ers" subsist on social services like food stamps and Medicaid, programs now in danger of deep cuts demanded by many Republicans in Congress in exchange for allowing the federal government to go deeper into debt.


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A WSJ article from April, 2011:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/04/30/number-of-the-week-millions-set-to-lose-unemployment-benefits/

Number of the Week: Millions Set to Lose Unemployment Benefits


5.5 million: Americans unemployed and not receiving benefits

The job market may be on the mend, but that’s not much consolation to millions of Americans facing a frightening deadline: the end of their unemployment benefits.

The country’s unemployment rolls are shrinking fast, after expanding sharply last year as the government extended benefits to ease the pain of a deep economic slump. As of mid-March, about 8.5 million people were receiving some kind of unemployment payments, down from 11.5 million a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.

To some extent, the shrinkage reflects a desirable reality: Some people are leaving the unemployment rolls because they’re finding jobs. The number of employed in March was up nearly 1 million from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department’s household survey. That’s the biggest year-over-year rise since late 2007.

Many Americans, though, are simply running out of time. As of March, about 14 million people were unemployed and looking for work, according to the household survey. At the time the survey was done, about 8.5 million were receiving some kind of unemployment payments, according to the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration. That leaves about 5.5 million people unemployed without benefits, up 1.4 million from a year earlier.


snip

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Finally, here is the chart tracking those exhausting benefits from the ZH article I posted:

[pinqy]

8. What's the breakdown, then?

you're not in reality if you think that more than a just a small minority of those who have lost UE benefits due to the 99 week cut-off have done so due to finding a job.

I have no idea how many people no longer receiving benefits (state or federal) stopped because of finding a job or due to time cut off. I'm not aware of any statistics that capture that.

The author never said that this BLS report was the source of this number.

He most certainly did:

Another day, another chance for the BLS to fudge jobs data by revising last week's claims miss to an even worse number:... the BLS has been doing this very same fudge for 2 years in a row now) ... And one thing that will also most certainly be ignored is that the 423K number is really 427K because as the BLS reported...

Again, BLS had absolutely nothing to do with this report. They neither collected nor released the data.

And look at the WSJ article:

As of March, about 14 million people were unemployed and looking for work, according to the household survey. At the time the survey was done, about 8.5 million were receiving some kind of unemployment payments, according to the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration. That leaves about 5.5 million people unemployed without benefits, up 1.4 million from a year earlier.

Now the household survey is conducted by Census for BLS, but it includes everyone...not just those eligible for UI. There is no way to tell if the 5.5 million unemployed not receiving benefits never applied or ran out. Add in there are many people who no longer receive benefits who are not looking for work (one reason to lose benefits) and they are not counted as unemployed.

[stockholmer]

9. my links attempt to explain the numbers (around 5 to 7 million) of people who have lost UE benefits

Some have lost benefits due to finding a job, some have started receiving early SS or disability, some have died, but these are nothing more than a minority of this group. I already covered the workforce participation variables in my original post. There are also millions upon millions who are vastly underemployed in part-time jobs who desire full-time work.

If someone doesn't have a job, has sent out hundreds or thousands of applications, and has run off the 99 week ramp, and simply gives up, that is NO WAY makes them any less of a person in dire straits. There are a multitude of other scenarios where a person is not counted as well. It is unconscionable that the BLS or some other government agency (with aid from the 50 states labour departments) doesn't accurately keep tabs on these people. One reason they do not, is to simply try to sweep bad bad news under the table, for the sake of the system and their own self interest.

The governments at all levels, the Federal Reserve, and other 'continuity of agenda' supporting institutions all have a strong desire and need to whitewash things, and they do so all the time, on a number of different matrices, including (but not limited to): inflation, true scope of bank and corporate bailouts, unemployment, CPI, money supply/currency debasement, budget deficits, job creation, national debt, state debt, municipal debt, income levels, poverty levels, etc etc. The systemic controllers almost ALWAYS err in their own favour, it is in their nature and to their benefit.

They count on most people only looking at certain numbers the controllers deem 'vital', and then furthermore use the power of official and unofficial gatekeepers from the masses to defend their misdirection. If a person buys into the current party or coalition in power, then they will defend the stats. If they are out of power, they will use 'simple-to-sound-bite' selective quotes to try to 'blame' the other side. It is all a massive psy-op inside a false paradigm of pre-approved, controlled, 'acceptable' choices. This has been going on in society for thousands of years, and nowadays, they have it down to a multi-dimensional, mass behavioural controlling science.

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Here is an article and a reply that also offer up ways to attempt to calculate these people (unemployed with no more UE benefits who wish to work):

here is the article

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/09/question-of-day-how-many-people-have.html

snip

"Implications and Analysis

The implication is at least 6,927,372 have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits.

Indeed, the number may be considerably higher because every first-time job seeker who found a covered job since the pool peak in 2008, displaced someone in the eligibility pool who exhausted all benefits.

All things considered, at least 7 million people exhausted all unemployment benefits with some unknown portion of them coping via an option to start collecting social security. Moreover, those prematurely opting for social security, did so with reduced benefits."

snip
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here is one reply


"I pinged Tim Wallace who made the previous estimate, and here is Tim's response.

Hello Mike(s)

This is a hard one to answer because I cannot find any government numbers in my searches. I can however tell you these facts:

1.In January of 2009 there were 133,886,830 people in the state unemployment pool footnotes in the weekly unemployment report. Today there are 125,807,339, a loss of 8,079,491 unemployment insurance covered positions.

2.The federal EUC2008 extended program at that same time covered 2,147,837 people. Today the various federal extended programs cover 7,169,176, a net increase of 5,021,339 covered people at the federal level.

3.Since we know there were 8,079,491 people who have totally dropped off the state level roles and there is a net increase at the federal level of 5,021,339 people, we can safely assume that 3,058,152 people have exhausted all benefits - they are no longer covered on either sets of roles.


However, it is more complicated than that.

We know also that in the years leading up to this economic depression, covered employees rose by an average of 1.9 million people per year - people entering the workforce in positions with benefits.

Given the economy has been harsh for several years, not all the 1.9 million new job seekers have found positions. Let's assume 1/2 of them did (2,000,000 in two years), and that number is reflected in the 125.8 million covered workers.

Let's also assume 2 million younger workers took jobs of older, higher priced workers who were displaced and lost benefits. It could easily be greater.

Adding 2 million to line three and rounding up a bit, I would reasonably assume that roughly 5,100,000 people have exhausted all unemployment benefits.

Another interesting thing to note and remember is that social security payouts which averaged an annual increase of about 3% net after COLA adjustments increased by 8% net in FY 2009. They are back to tracking 3% now in the past two years as there is no COLA adjustments and that is the net increase. I would safely say that a large number of people who took the hit in 2009 simply retired and never re-entered the workforce.

There is absolutely no excuse for this information to not be a readily accessible from the BLS or Department of Labor.

Tim"

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I hope this helps, I repeat that this number must be known and tracked to get a clear picture on what the US is dealing with in terms of true UE rates and suffering.

cheers

[Name removed]

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