Chart of Initial Jobless Claims

lnitial Jobless Claims in the most recent week hit their highest level since July 1992 with a reading of 542,000.  For those interested in looking at a depressing chart, below we highlight historical Initial Jobless Claims and compare it to the S&P 500 (logarithmic).  While 542,000 is very high, it still has a ways to go to top the highest level of 695,000 seen in October 1982.

click to enlarge

Comments

[Vox Rationalis:]

Seems like a better chart would be the change in jobless claims against the change in the index.

2008 Nov 20 01:54 PM

[Mr. Math:]

The numbers are absolute, and the workforce is much larger, as is the population.

2008 Nov 20 03:34 PM

[notsosmart:]

just more phony #s. the truth( my guess,my truth) is closer to double.

2008 Nov 21 10:19 AM

[carey_jim:]

Mr. Math was too succinct. He means to say that when the population increases then the number of employed people, fat people, tall people and unemployed people, just to mention a few categories AUTOMATICALLY increases along with everything else.

The numbers you report are not percentages but are amounts.

So if you said that there are far more poor people in the United States today than there were in 1932, it would be true but there are also far more PEOPLE in the United States today also.

These statistics also leave out the "shadow" unemployed, those people who have given up looking for work or who haven't found work after six months but are still looking not to mention people who are "under" employed: engineers working as bus drivers, etc., etc.

So they aren't too helpful.

2008 Nov 21 01:07 PM