It's Always A "Surprise" -- Jobless Claims Rise -- Again

Link here.

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week in a sign concerns about a weak economy were sapping an already beleaguered labor market, data showed on Thursday.

Applications for unemployment benefits climbed to 428,000 in the week ending September 10 from an upwardly revised 417,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said.

It was the second straight week in which claims rose. Wall Street analysts had been looking for a dip to 410,000.

Notice how the Reuters writer combined two dismal statistics in one sentence: a) the previous week's stats were low, and were revised upward; and, b) the headline story: stats even worse this week.

The "scary" thing about this number is that it comes near the end of the summer when employment should have maxed out with construction jobs and folks returning home from August vacations (Florida recorded highest number of tourists in years, according to governor yesterday on CNBC). Construction -- particularly road construction - will start to wane as we get closer to winter.

Hey, by the way, it appears the common theme in any long discussion on the job situation keeps coming back to the Frank-Dodd bill. Apparently the banks are being told by regulators to get out of the real estate lending business. The regulators look at the percentage of loans in real estate as a bigger factor than the quality of the loans when judging the strength / weakness / risk of a bank's lending portfolio.

On another note, with benefits extending out to 99 weeks and talk of extending even that, this increase in benefits applications should not be a surprise. Again, I have seen no California license plates in Williston, although two folks have written to me to say they have seen at least one vehicle. After Nevada, California has the highest unemployment rate at 12 percent, and western North Dakota desperately needs workers.

The moratorium continues in the Gulf. The attempt to start work on one of the largest pipeline projects in the continental United States languishes in Foggy Bottom. Bank of America announces that it will lay off 30,000 workers (one in six BofA workers is in California). And so it goes.
Meanwhile, elsewhere:

• Inflation up, manufacturing down.

And, more:

• Initial default notices for home mortgages surged 33 percent in August, signaling wave of new foreclosures

So, in the past 48 hours, a thumbnail recap:

• Highest poverty rate since 1993
• Median income reveals "lost decade" (which, by the way, is a phrase I coined, and is a tag at the bottom of the blog)
• Manufacturing down
• Inflation up
• Jobless claims up significantly (the rise this most recent reporting period was NOT trivial)
• Wave of new home foreclosures forecast
• Michigan will track children's BMI in state registry (where is the ACLU on this one?)

This organization was founded to improve the job situation; according to their spokesman on CNBC, the president has not returned their phone calls. I have seen nothing in this administration to suggest they want to improve the job situation (except speeches, of course, and hiring an economic czar who moves headquarters of  two divisions [technology and health devices] of his corporation to China).

By the way, this is truly incredible. It will be interesting to see how long this stays up. This seems very much akin a previous president's "Enemies List." At least this part of the administration is showing some transparency.