The Department of Labor is
reporting 391,000 initial claims for unemployment. This represents:
...a decrease of 37,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 428,000. The 4-week moving average was 417,000, a decrease of 5,250 from the previous week's revised average of 422,250.
Remember how recently I've pointed out that economists had been making consistently optimistic predictions about unemployment claims? This week broke that pattern—no one anticipated a drop anything like this. However, there is at least a partial technical explanation for the unexpected drop:
A Labor Department spokesman said some of the drop was due to technical difficulties related to seasonally adjusting the figures. The spokesman said some states also reported higher applications in previous weeks due to Hurricane Irene.
We'll have to wait until next week to see how things really shake out. Meanwhile, 3.58 million people have "used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments."