U.S. Initial Unemployment Claims Jumped in Most Recent Week
by:Sandy Batten
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- The 242,000 increase was much larger than expectations.
- The outsized increase was likely impacted by late Thanksgiving.
- Still, on the margin, labor-market conditions appear to be cooling a bit.
Initial claims for unemployment insurance jumped 17,000 to 242,000, seasonally adjusted, in the week ended December 7, the highest weekly reading since the hurricane-augmented 242,000 reading in the week ended October 12. Claims in the previous week were revised up slightly to 225,000 from 224,000. The Action Economic Forecast Survey had expected claims to be 220,000. The 4-week moving average increased to 224,250 from 218,500. Weekly claims figures at this time of year can be distorted by the timing of Thanksgiving and the associated difficulty that presents to seasonally adjusting weekly data.
The total number of unemployment insurance beneficiaries increased to 1.886 million in the week ended November 30, up from an unrevised 1.871 million in the previous week. This total number of beneficiaries is also known as “continuing claims.” The 4-week moving average was 1.888 million in the week ended November 30, up from 1.884 million in the previous week. The insured unemployment rate, that is, the total number of beneficiaries as a percent of covered employment, was unchanged at 1.2% in the week ended November 30.
Unemployment rates vary markedly across states. The Labor Department reports that for the week ended November 23, the insured unemployment rate was highest in New Jersey at 2.21%, followed by 1.98% in Washington and Alaska, 1.84% in California and 1.79% in Rhode Island. The lowest rates were in Florida and South Dakota at 0.31%, followed by Virginia, 0.39%, Alabama, 0.42%, and Kentucky, 0.44%. Unemployment rates in other major states were 1.56% in New York, 1.49% in Pennsylvania, 1.18% in Michigan, 1.00% in Texas, and 0.84% in Ohio. These state rates are not seasonally adjusted.
Data on weekly unemployment claims are from the Department of Labor, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They begin in 1967 and are contained in Haver’s WEEKLY database and summarized monthly in USECON. Data for individual states are in REGIONW back to December 1986. The expectations figure is from the Action Economics Forecast Survey in the AS1REPNA database.
Sandy Batten
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Sandy Batten has more than 30 years of experience analyzing industrial economies and financial markets and a wide range of experience across the financial services sector, government, and academia. Before joining Haver Analytics, Sandy was a Vice President and Senior Economist at Citibank; Senior Credit Market Analyst at CDC Investment Management, Managing Director at Bear Stearns, and Executive Director at JPMorgan. In 2008, Sandy was named the most accurate US forecaster by the National Association for Business Economics. He is a member of the New York Forecasters Club, NABE, and the American Economic Association. Prior to his time in the financial services sector, Sandy was a Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Senior Staff Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the US Treasury, and Economist at the International Monetary Fund. Sandy has taught economics at St. Louis University, Denison University, and Muskingun College. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in a wide range of academic publications. He has a B.A. in economics from the University of Richmond and a M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from The Ohio State University.
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