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Cause For Claims Miss: California, Where Initial Claims Spike To An All Time High
Initial claims for the week ended January 23 were second consensus miss in a row, coming in at 470,000 (SA), a decline of 8,000 from the prior week's downward revised 482,000 (to 478,000), however 20,000 higher than the consensus of 450,000. The comparison of SA and NSA initial claims can be seen on the chart below.
A dig through the data indicates that probably the entire spike in claims can be attributed to some strange moves in Initial Claims coming out of California, where initial claims surged to an all time high of 115,462. Is there more than meets to eye to the "rosy" picture in the Sunshine Golden State.
One explanation for this could be a previously noted administrative problem by the DOL where a backlog of filings had accumulated at processing centers due to, gasp, a shortage of staff. Note however, that the state data lags national data by one week, so the California reporting period was for January 16. Of course this simply means that Initial Claims at the National level had been under-reported in prior periods, as many of these California claims had not been counted. The question of how great of lag there is in other states' data processing must also be asked - readers indicate that many states still have massive wait times for phone processed applications, and result in callers being asked to simply call be at a later date, again and again, concluding with an inability to file an initial claim for any given week.
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Sounds like more green shoots :)
I noticed the EUC number fell by 300,000 +. Would I be correct in assuming people dropped off because they ran out of all emergency and extended benefits?
I was wondering the same thing. This number has been extremely volatile over the past couple of weeks. It fell by over 300,000 two weeks ago and surged (if I recall) by like 600,000 last week.
Its all over the chart---which makes one wonder if there is any validity to it.
"Its all over the chart---which makes one wonder if there is any validity to it."
Agreed.
Let's be careful with these numbers. Why would we assume they're being manipulated when they're better than expected but we don't consider them manipulated when they're worse than expected? There seems to be a natural tendency to assume that bad numbers are real, or at least closer to reality. A cheater always cheats, often to support or substantiate prior cheats.
While I've always taken any government calculated (and many private) figures with a grain a salt, now a days a truck load of road salt during a winter snow storm isn't enough to help me swallow the swill.
One reason, why I'd assume "bad" numbers more clearly reflect reality is because the policitians have a vested interest in presenting a rosy situation.
+1
I was wondering the same thing. Does anybody know if they track the numbers of people who are no longer counted due to extended and emergency benefits running out? I am sure many people are running out of benefits. Just wonder if those numbers are released.
the ETA press release states that CA processed a large backlog of claims, however the 4 week moving avg. for claims should eliminate any quirks from the quirkiest state
what is more interesting is that a few Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states saw big drops in claims in construction
it is quite likely that a January warm up tempted some builders to keep people working or hire people earlier than usual, but with snow moving across the area today and frigid temps. back, look for these people to be laid off again
Confuseus say : California jobless numbers just simmer now. Come to boil soon as local gubmints move to fire mode.
is there any correlation to nonfarms; in previous months of similiar number of claims we lost 300-600K jobs. However the correlation is weak across the data set
"Is there more than meets to eye to the "rosy" picture in the Sunshine State."
Dude, Florida is the Sunshine State. California is the Golden State.
Nice attention to detail though.
I got stalled in colorado, 2 extra weeks, 4 total
Si it has hit the wall. Perhaps still more cheap
labor will make California economy EXPLODE.
On this DOL site:
http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp
change the beginning year to 2006 and hit submit. On the report page generated, check the column to the far right (Covered Employment) and compare the last figure shown versus the figure for any week of Jan 2009 and you will see they dropped it by over 3.75 million. You have to go back to 9/2006 to find covered unemployment as a lesser number. Lies, damned lies, statistics...
California is actually the Golden state--Florida is the sunshine state...Either way nothing rosy to see here, we're screwed.
Sunshine state? Um, that would be Florida. According to my license plate, and recalling decades of indoctrination as a born & bred native, California is the Golden state, bitches!
With such good news the NYSE decided to give everyone on the exchange a 17 minute coffee break.
Recession is officially over! Unemploymet dropping, housing market correcting and the markets up, up and away. At least that is what I hear day in and day out on the legacy media outlets. I love the optimism but.....
And of course corporate profits are up they have slashed expenses = jobs.
Cool!
I was pretty sure all was well after reading AP headlines in Yahoo Finance and watching CNBC.
It's like the housing shadow inventory, out there but hidden from view. These types of tricks only work so long...then it all blows up.
Is there more than meets to eye to the "rosy" picture in the Sunshine Golden State? That's a good one Tyler. As a Californian, I am even more discouraged by our state leadership than by the US...this place is one humongous ongoing clusterf***!
Behold more CA cluster**** !!
State teacher's fund way broke.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-27/california-teachers-pension-fund-42-6-billion-short-updated1-.html
try this one instead:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-27/california-teachers-pension-fund-42-6-billion-short-update1-.html
thanx, 04. Think I had an xtra "d" on update.
Let's be above one sided bias. Numbers in cali are awful and initial claims don't really matter anymore but if you're going to report EUC for 4 months straight when its exploding, mention the fact that EUC was down 305K from last week. Its only fair. I'm a realist and love this site to death, which is why i'm calling us out. CNBC is biased, ZH should be above that ish.
I live in California and I'm biased. Does that count?