Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance payments last week held at a four-year low. Applications for jobless benefits were unchanged in the week ended Feb. 18 at 351,000, the fewest since March 2008, Labor Department figures showed today. The median projection called for 355,000 claims, marking the fourth straight week that the figures have been better than forecast. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls dropped to the lowest level since August 2008.
Here is a chart of Seasonally Adjusted Initial Jobless Claims. With the exception of last week, they have been steadily falling.
On a non seasonally adjusted basis, we actually saw fewer initial jobless claims.
Of course, initial jobless claims are for people who were in the civilian labor force already and filing for unemployment benefits. It ignores the staggering changes in the number of people that have dropped out of the civilian labor force.
Civilian Employment to Population Ratio
The civilian employment to population ratio rose during the Reagan years, peaked during the Clinton years, but has stalled coming out of the recent recession. The non-employment rate (or 1 minus the civilian employment to population ratio) is 41.5%.
Civilian Participation Rate
We see the same pattern in the civilian participation rate. It rose during the Reagan years, peaked during the Clinton years and dropped off a cliff during the Obama years. It now stands at a non participation rate of 36.3%.
Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons (U6RATE)
Of those who were in the labor force, the unemployment rate is 15.1% if we include part time workers.
Narrowly Defined Unemployment
Once again, of those who haven’t dropped out of the labor force (which is huge), the “unemployment rate” is 8.3%. I call this the “survival rate” for those who are still in the civilian labor force.
So, our labor force is shrinking as a percentage of the population. Jobless claims among the survivors are shrinking. But the civilian employment to population hasn’t moved since mid 2009.
