The now weekly continued unemployment claims data is out and we are now up to 6.79M – a new record. Last week we were at 6.66 Million.

In the week ending May 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 623,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 636,000. The 4-week moving average was 626,750, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 629,750.
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The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 16 was 6,788,000, an increase of 110,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 6,678,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,608,250, an increase of 123,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 6,484,500.

Two quick points:

1) The initial claims are down from 636K to 623K. What we are now have is a situation where people will try to make good news out of bad. No matter how you spin it, this is still BAD news.

2) The Continued Unemployment Claims record of 6.79 Million is a record based on volume, not percentage. The percentage continued unemployment claims records was 5.4% in the 1970’s, right now we are at 5.1%