hmmm the jobless rate and initial claims for unemployment insurance are completely seperate things and you shouldn’t have heard them linked like that.
Here’s the UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORTreleased by the Employment and Training Administration of DOL every Thursday. First we see Intial Claims for the previous week, seasonally adjusted, not seasonally adjusted, and 4 week moving average. This is a good early indicator for the job market and, since it’s the most timely, the one that gets the most attention. It’s subject to revision for the next 2 weeks as many times states don’t get all their numbers in on time.
Next is Insured Unemployment, and that’s what you’re asking about. It’s the total number of people receiving UI benefits through the regular State programs as of 2 weeks earlier. Again seasonally adjusted, unadjusted, and moving average.
Next is Initial Claims in Federal Programs (Federal workers and recently discharged veterans). These are administered through the State offices, but funding comes from the Federal Government. Because of the low size, they are not seasonally adjusted.
And last is total recipients from all programs, including Emergency and Extended Benefits. These aren’t covered in the regular state programs.
For the Official Unemployment rate, the numbers come from a monthly survey of approx 60,000 households, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Universe for the survey is everyone in the US age 16 and older who is not in the military, prison, or an institution.
This Population is broken into 2 groups: Labor Force and Not in the Labor Force. The Labor Force is Employed plus Unemployed where Employed is defined as worked at least one hour for pay or 15+ hours unpaid in a family business or farm during the survey reference week (usually the week that contains the 12th).
Unemployed is defined as did not work during the reference week, could have started a job that week if offered, and actively looked for work in the 4 weeks ending with the reference week.
The UE rate then is Unemployed divided by the Labor Force.
Everyone else…those not working and not currently looking for work…are Not in the Labor Force.