Jobless claims lowest in three years

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8211857.htm

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped for the third consecutive week last week, pushing jobless claims to the lowest level in more than three years.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits fell by 6,000 last week to 336,000, a level that was last seen the week of Jan. 13, 2001, just before Bill Clinton relinquished the White House to George W. Bush.

In other economic news, the government said inflation at the wholesale level jumped by 0.6 percent in January, the biggest increase in three months. That reflected in part the largest jump in energy prices since last March at the start of the Iraq war. Outside of the volatile food and energy categories, the Producer Price Index rose a more moderate 0.3 percent.

The release of the PPI report for January was a month late as the Labor Department struggled to overcome difficulties in converting to a new classification system for the products it tracks for price changes.

The third straight weekly decline in jobless benefits raised hopes that a lengthy stretch of layoffs is coming to a close, setting the stage for businesses to finally begin rehiring laid-off workers.

who've lost their unemployment benefits and those who have given up looking for work. Laughable.

Some economic index just jumped up due to energy prices.

We are paying $1.80 a gallon for gas, everyone expects it to go over $2.00.

The economy is rebounding like a lead balloon.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040318/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy_44

Just 21,000 new jobs were created in February, as reflected by the Labor Department's survey of payrolls, as the country's job machine continued to fall badly below expectations. The unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent last month. The overall rate remained stable only because 392,000 Americans gave up looking for work and were no longer counted in the labor market.

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Please visit that story and rate it 5. There's already a more recent sanitized story out there to distract people.

Initial claims numbers have gotten pretty irrelevant at this point.

Even continuing claims, which is not pegged at something like 3,068,000 ignores those who have recently lost benefits.

The "real" unemployment rate is probably 10-12%, and the picture is not getting prettier.

I'm curious, where do you get your "real" figures?

Look at the U-6 number. The only number the media ever reports is U-3.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

Jobless rates are relative to other factors besides the lone one reported as associated with the sole act of filing for unemployment.

Homeless rates, suicide rates, bankruptcy rates, and migration rates should always be included when reporting on jobless rates.

since Shrub took office.   Gee! that's really impressive. :eyes: