Total Unemployed Passes New Milestone -- 9 Million Unemployed -- Absolutely Nothing About the Bakken

If interested in commentary having nothing to do with the Bakken, press on. Otherwise, ignore this posting.

The headline: "Jobless Claims Post Biggest Jump in Six Months."

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly to 445,000 from 410,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. It was the biggest one-week jump in about six months, confounding analyst forecasts for a small drop to 405,000.

The number of first-time jobless claims has been bouncing around in this range for quite some time, so the casual observer -- like me -- sees this as simply "background noise." I read the headline, saw the crawler on television and then decided to move on.

Something tipped me off that there was a bigger number to look at, not the first-time claims number. I forget where I got that tip. So I decided to check out the story, but with no plans for posting. A link took me to the Reuters "version," the link above.

The number had to do with the total number of unemployed. It had crossed a new milestone. I wanted to see if that was accurate: had "we" crossed a new milestone?

Wow, was that hard to find. I started reading the Reuters story, and read, and read, almost giving up, thinking I had misheard / misread something. But there it was, buried in the story: at the bottom of the story, the 18th paragraph in a 20-paragraph story.

This should have been the headline: Total US Jobless Hits New Milestone: 9 Million Unemployed.

A huge amount of information was packed in that paragraph buried at the end. Here's the entire paragraph:

Continuing claims did retreat sharply to 3.88 million from 4.13 million, offering some reason for hope. Still, the total number of Americans on benefit rolls, including extended benefits under emergency government programs, jumped to 9.19 million from 8.77 million.

But even there, to temper the shock that we have passed the 9 million unemployed milestone, the paragraph began with a "reason for hope."

I can only imagine how the headline and how this story would have been written if a different party occupied the White House.

Recent monthly reports show that new jobs are averaging about 100,000/month -- if my memory serves me correctly -- the number has bounced all over. At 100,000 new jobs/month, it will only take 7.5 years to get these 9 million employed.