Non-Seasonally Adjusted First-time Claims Fell to 177,948 Claims

This is the Eleventh Week this Year under 200,000 Claims - On Record Pace

The weekly unemployment claims data should be receiving more attention than it has been receiving. There was a time that if the seasonally adjusted (SA) first-time unemployment (FTU) claims data was under 300,000 that the media would throw a party. The SA FTU has been 300,000 or lower since March 7, 2015.  That FACT is questionable. There was a collective yawn when we had back to back SA FTU under 200,000 claims earlier this year. Last year we set a record for the number of weeks with the first-time claims under 200,000 non-seasonally adjusted (NSA.)Continuing claims have been under 2 million claims since April 1, 2017. Last October we set a record low for the Insured Unemployment Rate of 0.95%. What happened this week?

Lowest Ever Non-Seasonally Adjusted First-time Claims Level for the Fourth Week of July. Ever. The lowest level since July of 1967. Ever. With tens of millions more covered insured. The most covered insured ever. Ever. This week we had 177,948 first-time claims.

The seasonally adjusted first-time claims level could have been reported under 160,000 claims. The headline value was 215,000 claims. It could have been reported as low as 151,000 claims. (Please retweet this tweet.)

This was the eleventh week this year with NSA FTU under 200,000 Claims. We only had one week under 200,000 during 2015, two weeks during 2016, and four weeks during 2017. Last year at this time we had eight weeks under 200,000 claims. That was during the all-time record year with 21 weeks under 200,000. We are ahead of schedule.

The non-seasonally adjusted Continuing Claims (NSA CC) value came in at 1.680 million claims. Continuing claims tend to fall through September and into the first week of October. Last year we had a low of 1.350 million that went unreported elsewhere.

The SA CC value was 1.699 million - lower than the third week of July during 1970, 1971, and 1972. We had 52 million covered insured during 1972. We had 144 million covered insured this week.

The Insured Unemployment rate came in at 1.17%. Last year we were at 1.20%. Last year we hit 0.95% during October. Could we still drop below 0.90%?

This data may be only something an economic data geek may enjoy discussing. This is important to the average person in that fewer people are unemployed and more people are employed than we have seen in a generation. Both are happening simultaneously the economy. People are earning higher wages. People should be feeling good about this. The Democrat Presidential candidates have been berating a weak economy. We must live in an upside down, seasonally adjusted world. You see, it is a seasonally adjusted 32 degrees in Ohio right now. Oh, wait, it is 73 degrees non-seasonally adjusted.

It's the Economy.