Still, claims have remained historically low, showing the overall health of the labor market. Claims numbers have remained below 300,000 a week for more than two and a half years.
Jobless claims data can be volatile. The four-week moving average, a steadier measure, dropped 9,500 to 248,250 last week, after hitting a more than one-year peak in mid-September.
The number of claims workers made for longer than a week also dropped, falling to 1,888,000 in the week ended Oct. 7, which is reported along with last week’s data because continuing claims are released with a one-week lag.
Boy, talk about a lame attempt to explain away making America great again. Power outages in Puerto Rico? Really? When Florida and Houston had power outages, the claims spiked. Now, the collapse in claims is due to power outages from a storm that happened a month ago? (Yes, the power outages ARE still present, but they were present when the claims spiked a month ago, too!)