Jobless claims drop sharply

[jefferson_dem]

Jobless claims drop sharply
By Ben Rooney, February 11, 2010: 8:42 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell sharply last week, according to government data released Thursday.

There were 440,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Feb. 6, down 43,000 from a revised 483,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.

Economists were expecting initial claims to drop to 465,000, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.

The government also said 4,538,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Jan. 30, the most recent data available. That's down 79,000 from the preceding week's revised 4,617,000 claims.

Economists were expecting continuing claims to have declined 2,000 to 4,600,000.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/11/news/economy/initial_jobless_claims/index.htm

[liberalmuse]

1. I'm not sure if that's good or not.

I read an article (probably posted here) that stated a lot of people are just giving up looking for work.

[karynnj]

7. That doesn't affect the first number

The first number is initial claims which would not have any people already labeled having given up.

On the second number, the predicted number should have accounted for those whose claims expired. I assume that the reason you leave that number is that your benefits expire or you get a job. (This is not like the unemployment number from the household suvey that includes people not getting benefits. These are people getting benefits and they are highly motivated to do what is needed to keep the benefits they deserve.)

[Craftsman]

2. Hard to get to the Unemployment office when you're snowed in.

[Phx_Dem]

5. You're kidding right? You don't have to "go" to the umeployment

office anymore. You can file online, and most people do. At least in my state.

[Craftsman]

6. In many state for you intial filing you have to go in

[mucifer]

3. when bush was president we were saying the claims go down when they stop looking

for jobs. Now it's good news. I'm hoping President Obama can get a HUGE green jobs initiative started soon. All I know is public transportation is falling apart here in Chicago. They are cutting lots of service to the trains and they are at war with the unions. Federal cash for increasing service and jobs would be nice.

[karynnj]

9. Not true -

We said that when the unemployment numbers went down, people were not counted because they were not looking. This is unemployment benefits.

[DrToast]

13. No "we" weren't because this has nothing to do with those people

[Love Bug]

4. All this means:

"The government also said 4,538,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Jan. 30, the most recent data available. That's down 79,000 from the preceding week's revised 4,617,000 claims."

is those 79,000 ran out of benefit extensions. Doesn't mean they got jobs, although I hope they did.

[karynnj]

10. You are ignoring the inference from the predicted number

The predicted number would pretty accurately get the numbers exhausting benefits. This suggests that higher than expected jobs were found.

[TexasObserver]

8. Recommend

[branders seine]

11. Seriously, how can we believe a word they say?

Every happy little report is followed in a couple ofmonths with a devastating retraction and a massive correction down.

They just make up shit and feed it to us like Lithium to mental ward inmates.

[AllentownJake]

12. What were the EUP claims filed