The Department of Labor has released its estimate of weekly jobless claims:
In the week ending Oct. 2, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 445,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 456,000. The 4-week moving average was 455,750, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 458,750.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending Sept. 25, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s revised rate of 3.6 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Sept. 25 was 4,462,000, a decrease of 48,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,510,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,510,750, a decrease of 27,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,538,500.
I think there are several things to keep in mind when considering this information. First, the estimate of claims has been revised upwards in 23 of the last 24 reports. As a commenter at Zero Hedge pointed out, the binomial probability of an unbiased jobless claims estimate being revised upward 23 out of 24 times is 0.00000143%.
Second, the moving average of the number of claims is essentially unchanged. 3,000 of 455,750 is a change of .66%. I find any notion that the margin of error is lower than this fantasy at best.
Third, as Tyler pointed out in the post linked above no matter how they cook the data they’re still reporting that continuing claims are increasing upwards. I can’t see good news in that.
Gallup’s reporting 10.1% unemployment by their method, with most of the uptick in the second half of the month, and so not showing up in the DOL report.