4 week moving average for initial claims is up 250 to 355,000. (Essentially flat).

Continuing claims up 3.41 million, vs 3.40 million the prior week.

There are actually still 7.5 million Americans receiving some kind of continuing claims... not all of whom are shown in the BLS 3.41 million number. Some of these are for veterans returning from overseas, etc.

Needless to say, this is slowwwwly going the wrong direction. We need steady improvement to get anywhere... not staying flat, and certainly NO backslides.

This is no surprise to those who have watched these posts for months. We still have a huge percentage (~15 to 18%) of the population who are "unemployed and underemployed". As the market shows any lift, more of those people will pile into the employment office, fail to find work, and keep the initial claims flat or climbing.

tl;dr -- We're still in a rut. We are barely replacing the normal churn in the economy, and we have a ton of people who are still waiting in the wings to work despite the numbers.

 

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From your data I can conclude that we're going to be at war for a very long time because no president wants those returning vets cluttering up the unemployment figures.


Where's my fucking flag.


Oh here it is.

 

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There aren't that many vets returning from overseas as civilians

 

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That's the plan. Keep them well-trained, well-geared, and in the military indefinately. And...from time to time, give them something to do.

 

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