A First-time Unemployment Claim Spike Should be Recorded Tomorrow

Last week's unemployment claims numbers where obscured by the upcoming Jobs report that was released this past Friday. The unadjusted (NSA) first time claims fell so that means that they reported the seasonally adjusted (SA) claims number as rising. Last week the continuing claims (CC) number also fell, meaning that the seasonally adjusted CC data was also reported as rising. The seasonal factors change by category, week, month, season and year. The authors of the report indicated that the under 300,000 seasonally adjusted first-time unemployment (FTU) claim streak continued.  Remember, it didn't start when they said it did and it ended , again, November 19th of this year.

Last week the NSA FTU Number fell to 250,377 - Big Deal. This is a sixteen year low. It should be a big deal. The reason why the first time unemployment claims number is so low is because the number of people working two jobs is high, as is the number of people working part-time jobs. The unemployment rate is a fake unemployment rate that does not factor in the non-participants.

A Scrooge Spike is Coming Tomorrow. Will it eclipse 400,000 NSA FTU?The trend is up. It will spike tomorrow and retreat a little for the remainder of the year, unless the economy is softening.

The Continuing Claims Level fell to under 1.75 Million - Big Deal, Again. This is a sixteen year low. Again, this data is distorted by the number of people working two jobs or not participating in the economy. If they don't qualify for first-time claims they aren't receiving continuing claims.

Continuing claims should rise through the end of the year. None of this matters if you can seasonally adjust your income as the government seasonally adjusts its data.

It's the Economy.