In the week ending July 25, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 584,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 559,000. The 4-week moving average was 559,000, a decrease of 8,250 from the previous week's revised average of 567,250.
This ends the period when the auto company issues played with the numbers. Here is the accompanying chart:
The good news here is the 4-week moving average continues to drop. In addition, consider this point from the same report:
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 507,464 in the week ending July 25, a decrease of 78,111 from the previous week. There were 376,123 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.
Last week the unadjusted numbers dropped 90,000 for a total unadjusted drop of about 160,000 in two weeks. That means we're still in a standard seasonal adjustment phase.
