If It's Thursday...

608,000 new jobless claims, still bad. A drop in continuing unemployment claims is therefore good, yes? Those fell by 148,000 to 6.69 million...except for a weekly drop that big, that suddenly with claims remaining over 600k a week means people fell off the long-term unemployment benefit rolls and ran out of unemployment insurance.

It just means we've reached something of an equilibrium point on continuing claims: new people will get benefits, and people who have been on benefits will run out and join the U-6 crowd. The recession has gone on so long that people are beginning to exhaust their unemployment benefits, even with the extensions Obama signed as part of the stimulus.