The lowest jobless claims rate since 1969, and other Biden Administration accomplishments this week

[lees1975]

Last edited Mon Jun 6, 2022, 02:55 PM - Edit history (1)

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/06/lowest-unemployment-since-1969.html

I was listening to South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn on the Sunday Show today, and this gives me confidence that the Democrats do indeed know exactly where things stand and they also know where the messaging needs to be. The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart is, in my opinion, the best of the Sunday political shows anywhere on television. Capehart called Representative Clyburn "politically brilliant," which agrees with my personal assessment of him and Clyburn spends about five minutes putting things into clear perspective, including declaring that the Biden administration not only knows what has to be done to get things in order, but in his words, "he will."

Our party has some of the best leadership it has ever put together and that's a good thing, because it is facing the biggest crisis it has ever faced, and that is the continued existence of American democracy. We have a President with the knowledge and experience in government, and the concern for people, to be motivated by that, and not by poll numbers which reflect selfishness rather than political reality. We have one of the best legal minds in the country in our Vice-President. We have the best Speaker of the House that our time could possibly produce and a majority leader in the Senate who is willing to take risks to put obstructionists, including those in his own party, on the record. We have James Clyburn in the house, who is, as he was labelled on a Sunday news program today, "politically brilliant." And we have Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar in the Senate who are working as hard to get things done as the obstructionists are working to block it.

We don't have a media outlet like the other side does, so we have to do this ourselves. We certainly have the same tools. The blog post in this thread can be linked.

VOTE iN NOVEMBER

[calimary]

1. And BE the "media outlet" for your friends who probably aren't

either following things closely or are surrounded by Republiars.

[progree]

2. Unemployment rate according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

YEAR Jan Feb March etc. etc.
2019 4.0 3.8 3.8 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.7 3.7 3.5 3.6 3.6 3.6
2020 3.5 3.5 4.4 14.7 13.2 11.0 10.2 8.4 7.9 6.9 6.7 6.7
2021 6.4 6.2 6.0 6.0 5.8 5.9 5.4 5.2 4.7 4.6 4.2 3.9
2022 4.0 3.8 3.6 3.6 3.6

Very very close but not quite.

Except for that, the claim is true.

[lees1975]

3. The lowest media report I can find, in those months that BofL shows 3.5 is 3.7

and that's in the NY Times and Wapo.

And I believe it is the quarterly rate that has reached that Nixon administration benchmark, not monthly adjusted rates.

[progree]

4. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the OFFICIAL source. If you saw 3.7 for those months,

in the Washington Post or New York Times or both, they were wrong. Which would be very interesting. Links?

They don't independently calculate an unemployment rate, and if they did, it would matter not one whit. They merely report the BLS numbers.

I keep all the BLS reports when they come out. The September 2019 UR was initially reported by the BLS as 3.5%, the December 2019 as 3.5%, January 2020 as 3.6%, the February 2020 as 3.5%,

The whole report:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Table A-1
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

As for ones in the past, all's I know is to use archive.org (or the ones I saved at the time), but I'm pretty sure one can access past BLS reports (besides the most recent one) at the BLS site somewhere, I just don't know how to do it.

And I believe it is the quarterly rate that has reached that Nixon administration benchmark, not monthly adjusted rates.

If you have a link for that, I will look at it.

I have never seen or heard of a media report that has reported recently the lowest unemployment rates since 1969.

Unemployment insurance claims - yes, on 5/19/22 it was reported that the continuing claims (aka insured unemployment) was the lowest since Dec 27, 1969. I suspect that was what that blogger was thinking when he wrote unemployment rate.

[lees1975]

5. Looking at the cited article in the blog

that's what was cited, lowest claims since 1969.

I still cannot find any reference to an unemployment rate citing lower than 3.6. Lost in minutia, perhaps, or it wasn't something that mainstream media pushed at the time.

[progree]

6. Not the blog post linked in your OP

Looking at the cited article in the blog
that's what was cited, lowest claims since 1969.

Here is the link in your OP
https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/06/lowest-unemployment-since-1969.html

This is what it has on the unemployment subject. I see nothing about claims. I searched the page for "claim" and "claims" and "insurance" and "insured". Anyway, both the title and the sentence is wrong, as is common with blog posts.

Lowest Unemployment Since 1969

Yet another accomplishment for the Biden Administration. The lowest unemployment rate since 1969 is now part of the record.

I don't see it citing any article on unemployment insurance claims.

Anyway, , unemployment insurance claims and unemployment rate are completely different animals. From the Department of Labor which produces both the unemployment insurance claims (Employment & Training Administration) and unemployment rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics):

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#ui

What do the unemployment insurance (UI) figures measure?

. . . While the UI claims data provide useful information, they are not used to measure total unemployment because they exclude several important groups. To begin with, not all workers are covered by UI programs. For example, self-employed workers, unpaid family workers, workers in certain not-for-profit organizations, and several other small (primarily seasonal) worker categories are not covered.

In addition, the insured unemployed exclude the following:

Unemployed workers who have exhausted their benefits.
Unemployed workers who have not yet earned benefit rights (such as new entrants or reentrants to the labor force).
Disqualified workers whose unemployment is considered to have resulted from their own actions rather than from economic conditions; for example, a worker fired for misconduct on the job.
Otherwise eligible unemployed persons who do not file for benefits.

Because of these and other limitations, statistics on insured unemployment cannot be used as a measure of total unemployment in the United States. Indeed, over the past decade, only about one-third of the total unemployed, on average, received regular UI benefits.

[lees1975]

7. Duly noted and corrected

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/06/lowest-unemployment-since-1969.html

[progree]

8. Duly appreciated and thank you ✅ 😊

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. More information

Last edited Sun Jun 12, 2022, 01:32 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#ui

What do the unemployment insurance (UI) figures measure?

Data on initial and continuing UI claims are maintained by the Employment and Training Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor, and are available on the Internet at http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp .

They are separate agencies, and they are in two separate buildings. ETA is in the Frances Perkins Building, at 200 Constitution Avenue. BLS is so big that it's in a separate building. BLS is in the old main post office building, across First Street NE from Union Station.

Agencies and Programs

As an organization with diverse functions, the U.S. Department of Labor carries out its mission through a number of offices and agencies. These are organized into major program areas, and headed by an Assistant Secretary or other official. You can also view the Department of Labor's Organizational Chart.

ETA's weekly reports on initial unemployment claims are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf . The contact information is on the final page:

U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
Washington, D.C. 20210
Release Number: USDL 22-1152-NAT
Program Contacts:
Kevin Stapleton: [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

The monthly payroll employment reports from the BLS are archived at Archived News Releases. In the list up at the top, under Major Economic Indicators, select Employment Situation. That opens up links to reports going back to 1994.

At DU, in the monthly thread about the employment situation, I keep a rolling archive of reports going back a year for both BLS and ADP news releases. You can find those reports at DU going back for about ten years now.

HTH, and good morning.

[progree]

9. 4 week average of continuing claims lowest since January 10, 1970 (and half the rate)

From the Dept of Labor June 8, 2022:

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment (aka continuing claims -Progree) during the week ending May 28 was 1,306,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 3,000 from 1,309,000 to 1,306,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,317,500, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since January 10, 1970 when it was 1,310,250.

and that was back when the labor force was 1/2 the size of what it is now. Meaning the continuing claims RATE is half what it was back then.

Labor Force:
January 1970: 81,981,000
May 2022: 164,376,000
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11000000

The labor force is the sum of the employed plus the officially unemployed

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. The report comes from the ETA, not from the BLS. NT

[progree]

13. Thanks much. I changed my #9 post to Dept. of Labor /nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

14. Kewl, as the kids say.

It's not unknown for economists go back and forth from agency to agency within DOL. I know an economist in OSHA who used to work on the employment reports when he was at BLS.

[progree]

15. I also fixed #6 (BLS and ETA). Thanks much again

And thanks for the info about the archives - I'll try to put it where I will be able to find it.