Last week the number of new unemployment claims was reported as 570,000. This week, the number of new unemployment claims was reported as 570,000. Naturally, the headline is "jobless claims dip. ...." Actually, the headline is literally true, because jobless claims for the previous week were revised up to 574,000. Still, the slight fall against an upwardly revised number was probably not the key news in this release. While weekly claims are below the peaks of 670,000 plus reached in April, the rate of new claims filing is the same as it was last fall when the economy was losing close to 700,000 jobs a month.
--Dean Baker
