– by a New Deal Democrat
“Initial Claims Revisions”
Revisions are a constant danger in reporting economic data. This was very evident in this week’s jobless claims report.
Not only was last week’s number revised down by -17,000, but the initial report of 264,000 two weeks ago is now down to 231,000! Big difference.
Anyway, the current report shows a weekly gain of 4,000 to 229,000. The 4-week moving average was unchanged at 231,750. Continuing claims, one week late, fell -5,000 to 1.794 million:
On a year-over-year basis, post-revision claims are currently up just 6.5%, and the more important 4-week average is up just 7.2%. Only ongoing claims continue to show big gains of 25.3%:
Most importantly, after revisions, the 4-week average never crossed the 12.5% threshold and has been below 10% for the past two weeks. If claims are also below 10% on an annual basis, I will remove the yellow flag – revisions to come.
Initial Claims Revisions Source link