Business

New Jobless Claims Continue to Hover Above 400,000

Posted on October 20, 2011 at 8:51am by Becket Adams
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New claims for unemployment benefits topped out at 403,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. A month ago, it was 422,250.

Granted, it’s a drop from the initially projected figure of 409,000, but the fact that this figure is one under which “economists generally believe the jobs market is really starting to improve” says very little the current job market.

Some economists have described the recent numbers as “thin gruel,“ ”not great“ and ”painfully slow improvement,” reports CNN Money.

“We’re running in place,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc., who projected 405,000 claims. The data are “consistent with lackluster to moderate growth in the job market and the economy,” he said in a recent Bloomberg article.

Others have remained a little more optimistic.

“This decline in initial claims signals the potential for an improvement in the pace of job creation in October relative to recent months,” said John Ryding, an economist with RDQ Economics in a recent CNBC report.

“However, we are still waiting for that decisive move in claims below the 400,000 mark to send a stronger signal that payroll growth is running at a pace that will begin to make sustained inroads into unemployment,” he added.

As mentioned earlier, economists have been looking to see the number of claims fall below 400,000 to signal a lower unemployment rate. However, the claims have been stuck at around or above the 400,000 level since April, reports CNN.

According to one Labor Department official speaking with the Wall Street Journal, “there was nothing unusual about the latest state level data.”

The unemployment rate has remained at 9.1 percent since July, and without a bigger drop in claims, there is little reason to hope for much improvement.

Thursday’s report also showed that the unemployment rate for workers with unemployment insurance for the week ending Oct. 8 remained unchanged from the prior week at 2.9 percent, reports the Journal.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose 25,000 to 3.7 million. But that doesn’t include several million additional laid-off workers receiving extended benefits under an emergency program paid for by the federal government and put in place during the recession.

The state-by-state breakdown in initial jobless claims, which is also released with a lag, showed the biggest rise the week ended Oct. 8 was in California, writes the Journal. Claims there rose by 13,882 amid more layoffs in the service industry. The largest decline in claims was in Wisconsin, down 1,536.

All told, 6.7 million people received benefits in the week ended Oct. 1, according the latest Labor Department data.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Comments (24)

Vechorik
Posted on October 22, 2011 at 4:54pm
All gold holders should listen to this! It’s what Obama could do with the gold (you realize they took gold away from citizens in the ‘30) Obama’s plan would be just as bad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbrsI8S4Tro
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Bernard
Posted on October 21, 2011 at 7:29pm
Wait till the commercial and retail bubbles go bust. Those unemployment figures will surge beyond half a million
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Mary Just
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 10:13pm
Anyone who believes anything this government states is a moron. Unemployment is between 20 – 25 % depending where you go in the country. If 400,000 people a week apply for unemployment then in 2.5 weeks we have 1 million unemployed. In 25 weeks we have 10 million unemployed. In 1 year we have 20 million unemployed. No go back to your alphabet network and take all the news in.
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jackact
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 6:34pm
I heard that Solyndra is hiring….
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robert
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 5:11pm
“The state-by-state breakdown in initial jobless claims, which is also released with a lag, showed the biggest rise the week ended Oct. 8 was in California, ”

This does not bode well for Calif at all, and signals a much darker economic picture for the state than has been painted so far. Calif. right now has a 25 billion budget shortfall. A rise in unemployment there is going to cause further economic problems for many other sectors of the financial apparatus, but, probably worst of all, there are definite indications that Greek-style rioting could well be a reality by 2012….or sooner…….because more cuts are going to have to be made to avoid collapse altogether.

We’re the first population in history to have an armchair view of economic destruction turning into chaos right before us in living color. Earth shaking history is being made right before our eyes.
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MUDFLAPS
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 5:01pm
think of all the people that could have been employed just with the expense money from michelle’s vacations and ovamits trips on AirForce one. You democrats are just total idiots. Yeah I mean you if you voted for this ingrate.
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jukin
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 3:45pm
I‘m just an engineer so I don’t understand anything but reality. It’s kind of a job requisite. Can someone explain this to me?

1. 11,616,000 unemployed (March 2009).

2. $860 billion dollar stimulus bill.

3. 14,010,000 unemployed (August 2011).

The above come from the BLS and CBO.

Now to me that looks like we spent $860 billion dollars (not including cost of funds) and we now have 2,394,000 more unemployed people.

Another thing:

1. 153,716,000 was the total labor force in March of 2009.

2. 153,600,000 was the total labor force in August of 2011.

Again BLS numbers from their monthly reports.

That appears to be another loss of 116,000.

To me, that looks like there has been a total of 2,510,000 jobs lost since the grand plan of borrowing 860 billion dollars to fund public union and green jobs.
That works out to $344,000 per lost job. Using linear regression I estimate that the new “Jobs Bill” will increase unemployment by 1.3 million people.

Not to mention that Solyndra got more money ($530 million) than did 35 states for infrastructure. Not shovel ready jobs just total infrastructure.

What am I missing here? Because really smart people (according to the media) like 0bama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, Wasserman Shultz tell me there have been 3 million jobs created since the first American Job Act known as The Stimulus was rammed through a democrat controlled congress.
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- LadyLibertykicksASS
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 4:17pm
  You’re using logic, The White House is using Crack….and a Oujie Board !!!! They broke the “ Magic 8 Ball” by shaking it too hard. They were trying to get the Unemployment number down below 35,000. !!!
  Stupid Idiots!!! Hey, it’s good for a laugh.
  Report Post »
robinakilt
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:43pm
Whoa.. We dodged a bullet on that one. Harry Reid said the private sector is doing just fine we need to help the public sector. You know get more public sector jobs (i.e. union jobs) up and running right before the elections so the unions have more dues paying members to take advantage of and so the unions can take that money and give it to the Marxist supporting democrats up for reelection. Ah a well put together plan of illegal actions in Washington. PS keep this quiet though because that would be one more illegal thing government has done to screw the people and if this got out to the OWS group well that would be just one more thing for them to protest the banks about…
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mad_hatter
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:10pm
Now this is fine and dandy, but look at the underemployment, that spiked up worse than ever before. ( http://www.americanparchment.com ) And the consumer misery index is the worse since 1983. What is happening to our economy… DOUBLE DIP RECESSION.
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- Detroit paperboy
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:40pm
  Welcome to Detroit…….
  Report Post »
- AvengerK
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:47pm
  When Obama tried to sell stimulus one, he said it would create four-million jobs. Lots of shovel-ready jobs he and Biden and Nancy- in- Wonderland told us. He used that again recently when selling stimulus two:
  “It’ll create good jobs for local construction workers right here in Denver and all across Colorado, and all across the country,” he said.
  Clearly the trillion dollars in spending did next to nothing to help the economy. Obama even joked about it: “I guess shovel ready wasn’t so shovel ready after all,”
  Obama is no longer governing, he’s strictly campaigning. He just finished another tax payer funded bus tour to rip Republicans and flog his stimulus two on us. Next week he‘s back with his BFF’s in Southern California for more $35K a couple fundraiser dinners. He doesn’t take the American people seriously when we get “saved, created and supported” jobs from this Keystone Kops administration. He keeps going back to the same failed policies that paid off his backers hoping they’ll remember him on election day. Every other American has to fend for themselves at this point..Obama doesn’t care. In fact, he’s thrown in his hat with the smelly OWSers at Fecesstock in New York and their aspirations to collapse the financial systerm. He doesnt’ care about all the hurt to Americans that would do. He only cares about throwing raw meat to his base. His re-election is what’s important to him, right now..that’s all.
  A failed pResident..utterly and truly
  Report Post »
- AvengerK
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:49pm
  “Even some in the White House said, ‘Hey, don’t get ahead of yourself.’ Well, I’m here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.”
  
  “We caught a lot of bad breaks on the way down,”. “We’re going to catch a few good breaks because of good planning on the way up.” – Joe Biden April 2010
  Report Post »
EqualJustice
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:09pm
HAHA Imagine if we take them, all the UNDER EMPLOYED and those who stopped looking and used Jesse Jackson Jr.’s plan???? WHOA Imagine how much that would cost? Gov’t hires at 40 grand a year each? These progressives are NUTS!
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OpenRevolt
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 1:00pm
This is exactly why we can’t afford to have Commie-Racist Cain for Pres since he wants relocate all businesses into “Empowerment Zones” and tax them and minorities at 3-3-3 while the rest of us middle class/poor whites pay the 9-9-9.

See it from his own mouth on CNN in this video:

http://www.redstate.com/paulkib/2011/10/14/cain-blows-up-999-plan-with-empowerment-zones/
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- TeaPartyanimal
  Posted on October 21, 2011 at 8:27pm
  This is exactly why we can’t afford to have Commie-Racist Cain for Pres since he wants relocate all businesses into “Empowerment Zones” and tax them and minorities at 3-3-3 while the rest of us middle class/poor whites pay the 9-9-9.
  
  See it from his own mouth on CNN in this video:
  ____________________________________________________
  
  pretty soon there wont be any rich or middle class. we’ll all be poor.
  
  Cain 2012!
  Report Post »
- OpenRevolt
  Posted on October 21, 2011 at 11:47pm
  @Tea Party Animal
  
  If we’re all going to be poor we need to CUT TAXES and CUT SPENDING, not let the GOVERNMENT REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH through COMMIE-RACIST 9-9-9 TAXES.
  
  This is the same thing as TARP and the BAILOUTS Cain SUPPORTED–the government choosing who can fail and who can succeed BASED on NONSENSE.
  
  If you want 9-9-9 go to Dominos and order a pizza and buffalo wings!
  Report Post »
JediPatriot
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 11:27am
This number just covers the claims. What about all of those people who are no longer able to apply? Now that would be a story. The true number of jobless people in the United States.
Peace
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- ADNIL
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 3:40pm
  No one ever counted me. I wonder how many others were never counted. ??????
  Report Post »
- JediPatriot
  Posted on October 21, 2011 at 8:32am
  @ ADNIL – Don’t feel alone. I know many who were never counted. Some who were even too proud to file. These statistics are a tool, meant to make sheeple feel better, like the government is doing something. Truly, the government has taken away more jobs thru the EPA than they could ever hope to create.
  Peace
  Report Post »
Gonzo
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 11:04am
Barry says “All the choices we’ve made have been the right ones”. Aren‘t we all grateful he didn’t foul up?
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- rosecityken
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 11:18am
  “private sector jobs are doing just fine”. Harry Reid
  Report Post »
- JRook
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 11:27am
  “The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose to a 26-year high last week, according to a government report released Wednesday.
  The Labor Department said that initial filings for state jobless benefits rose to 586,000 for the week ended Dec. 20, 2008. That was an increase of 30,000 from the 556,000 revised figure for the prior week, and up from a recent high of 575,000 claims reported earlier this month.” Clearly Bush Jr.’s economy was humming along by the time he left. His approach was working great.
  Report Post »
- Gonzo
  Posted on October 20, 2011 at 2:23pm
  What in heck does Bush have to do with it at this point? He’s responsible for slowing the recovery now?
  Report Post »

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