The Department of Labor states that there is no indication that the winter storm affected this week’s numbers (though they are likely to remain volatile through January) as jobless claims dropped from a ubiquitously revised-upwards 345k to 330k this week – the lowest level since the end of November. Continuing claims rose modestly back into the middle of the range of the last 4 months just like initial claims. The emergency claims data is lagged so we will not see the impact of congressional decisions on that until 2 weeks from now but its worth noting that the data we alreayd have shows 104,000 dropping off the rolls. California, Pennsylvania, and Michigan topped the initial claimants list with California worse than this time last year.
Initial claims stuck in a 4 month range…
but emergency benefits continue to see people fall off the rolls – down 104k for the week of 12/20/13…
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/vdweq5oRhQY/story01.htm Tyler Durden