Bob McCarty Writes

Straight from the horse’s mouth, I offer the latest unemployment claims figures from the U.S. Department of Labor:

In the week ending Jan. 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 480,000, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 472,000. The 4-week moving average was 468,750, an increase of 11,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 457,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending Jan. 23, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.5 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 23 was 4,602,000, an increase of 2,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,600,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,617,500, a decrease of 51,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,668,750.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 5.362 million.

What do all these numbers mean?  Seeking Alpha offers this take (plus a lot of great charts):

Currently there are some 5.6 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 5.79 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are well over 11 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Welcome to the “Land of Hope and Change.”