US Unemployment Claims Fall to 298K

Epoch Times ^ | 08/21/2014

[SeekAndFind]

Fewer people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, another sign the job market is improving.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly claims for jobless aid fell 14,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 298,000. The prior week’s figures were revised up slightly to 311,000.

The less-volatile four-week average rose 4,750 to 300,750. It remains close to levels that predate the Great Recession of 2007-2009.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs.

Employers aren’t just keeping workers. They’re hiring at a pace last seen during the tech boom. They added 209,000 jobs in July, the sixth straight month that job gains exceeded 200,000. The economy has generated 244,000 new jobs a month since February.

The recent hiring has encouraged more people to look for work, causing July’s unemployment rate to rise to 6.2 percent from 6.1 percent in June. The government counts only people searching for jobs as unemployed.

[Freestate316]

The unemployment rate will be 0% by mid October

[a fool in paradise]

Is that an “upchart” that we can overlay with that to show the number of adults (including those with degrees and professional work experience) who are not retired and are “out of the workforce”?

[Wyatt's Torch]

Well here's what I could find on FRED on 25 and older with Bachelors Degree and Higher:

[Senator_Blutarski]

I seem to remember that 175,000 new claims was considered a healthy number under past (Republican) Presidents. Then the number moved to 275,000 under Obama. Now 300,000 is considered wonderful.

Is my memory accurate?

[a fool in paradise]

Thanks!

[a fool in paradise]

I still don’t think I’m being tabulated in those results. I can’t file with anyone unless Dice.com et al are providing information on general user stats.

[ponz7]

Please explain to me how anyone can say the economy is improving when 298,000 people filed new claims for unemployment last week and only 209,000 jobs were created for the previous month?

Is this common core math?

[Wyatt's Torch]

Never been that low except for a very short period in the 70's. Below 300K is strong:

[Wyatt's Torch]

Different numbers. Thousands of people are hired and fired every day. That's normal job churn. Simplistically the job creation numbers are the net increase between those that are hired and those that are fired.

[a fool in paradise]

Obama is always hitting a “new all time low” of 40% approval. They keep ever tilting the pool with more Democrats and “independents”. They ignore that every time they cite it, it is a “new low” of a number he pegged YEARS ago.

[SeekAndFind]

Maybe you can answer Post number 27 above... Here’s his question:

Please explain to me how anyone can say the economy is improving when 298,000 people filed new claims for unemployment last week and only 209,000 jobs were created for the previous month?

Is this common core math?

[Vaduz]

Indeed the numbers are down to what they should not be up to.

[Night Hides Not]

Yes, he has. Of course, that doesn’t pay many bills!

I fully understand, my prayers are out to you. I've been in the same boat...it's tough to keep positive attitude going.

[A_Former_Democrat]

So it’s too low to begin with, then a week later they revise it upward, then compare that with the new week’s too low numbers.

VOILA! Thus you get a drop in claims.

[11th Commandment]

I really like the St. Louis Fed website.. You can make tons of Graphs. Works well for presentations!

[miss marmelstein]

Thank you! We all need to support each other when we fall upon “hard times,” lol. I assume you’ve landed on your feet?

[Night Hides Not]

Thanks to the banking crisis, I've been employed for the last 4 1/2 years. Next month, I'll be moving on to another agency that audits defense contracts. I can't complain, I'm one of the few term employees who's not having to draw unemployment after their terms end.

Several loan servicers for my agency will be breathing easier in a couple of weeks...lol. A highlight of my time here was the reaction by senior management to an after-action report I wrote. The title of the email from one was titled, "Houston, we have a problem."

The group I worked with held these contractors' feet to the fire. Unfortunately, there wasn't one outside contractor I worked with that performed their jobs to our satisfaction. It got pretty contentious at times.

[Freestate316]

I’ve noticed that myself, now that your point it out. It’s the same with the 11,000,000 illegal alien number they’ve been citing for the past decade.

[Freestate316]

“Unexpectedly” revised downward in December

[usconservative]

Employers aren’t just keeping workers. They’re hiring at a pace last seen during the tech boom. They added 209,000 jobs in July, the sixth straight month that job gains exceeded 200,000. The economy has generated 244,000 new jobs a month since February.

Lies. During the Tech Boom the economy generated far more than 244,000 jobs/month.

In fact, during the height of the "Bush Economy" more than 400,000 jobs/mo. were being created for an extended period of time.

The WORST part of the Bush Economy had somewhere around 177,000 jobs creted/mo.

BLS Statistics show just how bad the Obama Economy is. That doesn't stop the liberal lamestream media from donning their kneepads and singing Dear Narcissistic Leaders' praises though....

One day the media will pay for being Obama's willing propaganda whores.