Weekly Unemployment Claims At 469,000; Prepare for Friday’s BLS Snow Job

Weekly Unemployment Claims At 469,000; Prepare for Friday’s BLS Snow Job

Courtesy of Mish

Inquiring minds are investigating the Unemployment Weekly Claims Report for March 4, 2010.

In the week ending Feb. 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 469,000, a decrease of 29,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 498,000. The 4-week moving average was 470,750, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 474,250.

Weekly Unemployment Claims 

The weekly claims numbers are volatile so it’s best to focus on the trend in the 4-week moving average. That 4-week average has not show any improvement for quite some time.

4-Week Moving Average of Initial Claims

4-Week Moving Average of Initial Claims Detail

The 4-week moving average of claims for the last three weeks is above where it was on December 12, 2009 and just slightly better than it was on December 5, 2009. By this measure, the recovery has stalled.

Blaming The Weather

A week ago in “Nascent” Recovery or “Nascent” Economic Collapse? I noted how economists were blaming the weather for last week’s rise in weekly claims and possible jump in the monthly job report.

Weather Related Questions

I have a few simple questions for all the dim-bulb economists now blaming the weather:

• “Did you not know there was a snowstorm on the East coast?”
• “If you did, then why didn’t you factor it in to your estimates?”
• “How can you be surprised by something you knew?”

Bernanke’s Snow Job

To refresh your memory, last week Bernanke blamed the weather for the jump in claims and warned about overinterpreting the data.

From Yahoo Finance Jobless claims rise due to weather-related factors.

“Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a congressional committee that the snowstorms are likely to have a short-term — but not permanent — effect on unemployment and layoffs. He said policymakers will “have to be careful about not overinterpreting” the upcoming data.”

Summers Shovels Snow

Inquiring minds are reading Summers Shovels Snow on Winter’s Job Prospects by Caroline Baum.

Summers came out of virtual retirement Tuesday to tell CNBC the blizzards last month were likely to distort February’s employment statistics. It’s “very important to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends,” the White House economic adviser said in a TV interview.

What he really meant was, it’s important to look past bad numbers.

At the risk of inspiring accusations of naivete from conspiracy theorists convinced government agencies cook up the numbers in the basement, I decided to go to the source.

The only people who know the…

Read the original story at Phil’s Stock World