unemployment up...

According to Reuters, 1st time unemployment claims are up...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=3814236

(sorry if this is a duplicate post)

and anything that can be spun as "bad news" is good, but 366,000 is still a very good week. Economists consider anything under 400,000 to be a sign of a strengthening employment picture. It's just up from a surprisingly low figure last week, and the 4-week moving average has continued to improve.

The fact that there are 366,000 new unemployment claims is not good news.

The economists are blowing smoke.

That wives tail only makes sense if the economy is growing fast enough to absorb the recently unemployed.

Be careful how you parrot the "common wisdom" because it just ain't so in this economy.

Unemployed professional here out of work for 39 months.

"common wisdom" is irrelevant. It is ridiculous for us to spit at the wind.

The "good news" would be that the unemployment picture is turning around. It may hurt us politicaly (or, more realisticly, force us to pick better issues), but we can't hide it for 12 months if it is happening. People lose jobs in even the best economic times. The important figure is "how many people started new (to them) jobs?". The last couple months have shown increasingly "good" news. And, while they exagerate the news, they are correct in claiming that unemployment is a "lagging indicator". Jobs don't start appearing until well into a recovery. If these figures are true (and some here claim they are not), it is a sign that the lagging indicator is improving (and unexpectedly strongly).



If you've been unemployed for 39 months then you lost your job well before chimpy was "elected". You should say you've been out of work "since Bush took office".

On edit - That was not meant to be insensitive. What line of work were you in? How are you getting by now?

The operative word here is "surprisingly". I would also add "conveniently".

Too many people miss that the administration has the ability to sculpt the news cycle in a way that we cannot.
They could have spent the last several months pushing forward bad news and puching back good news so that it's there when it is most useful. What if they found OBL's body six months ago and are keeping him on ice until our convention? Or a month before the election?


I think all presidents do this. That's why the Rove's of the world were predicting that shrub would be down in the polls in the future. I think they sculpt the numbers to be low at the end of this year to pump them back up in time for the second half of next year. Both Reagan and Clinton were BEHIND the opposing presumptive nominee about this time in their first term and tehy both won handily.

That's why I've been so concerned that, even at the bottom of his number (so far), shrub still beats all of our candidates.

this time of year not down. This probably means Christmas retail sales are going to really suck this year. What I don't understand is what is keeping the stock market so high? Seems they love bad news?

Third quarter saw an increase in total jobs and a decrease in unemployment.

It just hasn't gone up ENOUGH.


And most of those figures are "seasonally adjusted" anyway - so you shouldn't expect spikes due to holiday employment. That's also why the big 125% jump in layoff numbers anounced last month were no big deal (to the numbers guys) - it happens every year in October-November, and was actually lower than the layoff figure from the year before.

When that dries up, then more people are going to file for unemployment.

These unemployment numbers show that we are heading in the right direction, towards recovery. However, one month of joblessness statistics does not make a economic recovery. I'd like to see a few months of steadily-decreasing joblessness before I ring the bell, and this holds true whether a Repug or Dem is in office. I think the notion that Dems want the economy to keep tanking so Bush doesn't win is ludicrous. True, I don't want Bush to win in 2004. But I'd still like to see my laid-off family members and friends find jobs. Maybe this would make me like Bush more (retching internally) but the fact is I don't think his economic plans and performance meet the needs of the average working American--far from it!

To illustrate the situation without numbers:
When I got my BA in 1995, jobs were plentiful. I got a good job within a couple weeks and moved up the corporate chain.
When I got my MSI in 2001, it took me two years to find a full-time permanent job. I'm still a contractor (is anyone hiring actual, real employees these days?) and pretty much worry daily that I may lose this job, which I enjoy and am grateful for.