Remarkable Unemployment Claims Numbers - Not 77 Weeks under 300,000 First-time Unemployment  Claims

Every week the Bureau of Labor releases the Weekly Unemployment Claims Report. The two main numbers that are discussed are the First-time Unemployment (FTU) Claims number and the Continuing Claims (CC) number. The number that is reported is the Seasonally Adjusted (SA) number. The number that is recorded is the non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) number. The seasonal factors used to convert the NSA data to the SA data changes from week to week, month to month, season to season, and year to year. The seasonal factors used for the FTU data is different from the CC data. The CC data lags the FTU data by one week. 

Some weeks the Bureau of Labor uses data from different seasons to generate FACTs (False Assertions Considered to be True) showing that the SA FTU number or the SA CC number is better than _____ (fill in the date.) The problem is that when the NSA data is compared there is often "no comparison." The most recent FACT is that we have had 77 consecutive Weeks of SA FTU claims under 300,000. This column produced four articles on this "streak." The streak began January of 2016 not March of 2015. The Streak is 27 weeks not 77 weeks.

The Continuing Claims Number remains persistently above 2 million claims. This should be a good number, by historical standards. The reason why this is not so is because we have a historic level of people working two part-time jobs. Another reason this number is not relevant is because we have a generation low for the participation rate and an Effective Unemployment rate in excess of 12%. If people are not collecting unemployment benefits they are not calculated into the FTU or CC numbers. That is fairly obvious. If they are unemployed and still looking for work then they are included in the  U3  Unemployment number.The NSA U3number is 8.267 million or 5.14%.

The First-time Claims number is artificially Low at 217,000. This number is artificially low because so many people are working two jobs, too. If they lose one job they still have another job. We could see the number of dual job workers decline and it would have little or no impact on the unemployment numbers, weekly or Job Report number.

Does this report mean anything. If people are lose their jobs and they don't receive benefits are they unemployed?