0
0

unemployment # calculations


 invite response                
2011 Aug 18, 3:47am   2,068 views  2 comments

by crazydesi   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

Can someone explain me what is meant by this?

408,000 people applied for unemployment benefits last week, up from 399,000 the week before and the most in four weeks.

Is it in 408K people in addition to 399K people or in total 408K only?

Is this the only # of people who are unemployed in whole US for the week?

Comments 1 - 2 of 2        Search these comments

1   Â¥   2011 Aug 18, 4:14am  

Continued claims are around 4M:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1FG

There's a 99-week max in most states so the 2009 spike will be rolling off in 2011.

Same graph with initial claims in red:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1FH

2   terriDeaner   2011 Aug 18, 5:07am  

crazydesi says

Is this the only # of people who are unemployed in whole US for the week?

As far as I know it is a count of the people who initially applied for unemployment that week. Troy's charts above show this and continuing claims, which a count of the people who are actively reapplying for unemployment.

The BL(&)S reports the unemployment rate in different ways (U1-U6) to reflect who's not working and who's looking for work. There are other measures of unemployment calculated by non-government sources (e.g., Gallup) for comparison.

When people go off of the unemployment rolls, they either 1. get a job 2. enter the limbo of looking for a job with no unemployment check, or 3. exit the labor pool and stop looking for a job.

#1 (theoretically...) shows up in the employment reports (BL&S, ADP, etc.), #3 shows up in the (declining) participation rate, and I don't know what happens in case #2... I guess it just gets reported in the participation rate.

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   random   suggestions