Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Stunning Misinformation in Jobless Claims Numbers

The financial media reports that "Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits decreased last week, a sign companies are cutting back on firings even as economic growth slows". Really? Initial jobless claims are also reported to have decreased by 16k to 453k..

However, previous week's claim number was revised higher from 465K to 468K.
 
What is worse is that prior week's continuing claims were also revised higher, from 4.48M to 4.54M.
 
What is the point in believing in any of these numbers if they are revised higher week after week?
 
And even worse, long term benefit recipients declined by 256K because...they exceeded 99 weeks of max claims. Is this supposed to be good?

That this is reported as good news is simply stunning.

Stumble Upon Toolbar

No comments:

Financial TV

Blog Archive

// adding Google analytics