Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims December 09 2010

Today’s jobless claims report showed a notable decline to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a declining trend shaped up for initial claims and traditional continued claims continued to trend down.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined by 17,000 to 421,000 claims from last week’s revised 438,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 191,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 3.2%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 4.5 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.66 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 8.17 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

The following chart shows the recent trend in initial non-seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims with the year-over-year percent change acting as a rough equivalent of a seasonally adjustment.

Historically, unemployment claims both “initial” and “continued” (ongoing claims) are a good leading indicator of the unemployment rate and inevitably the overall state of the economy.

The following chart shows “population adjusted” continued claims (ratio of unemployment claims to the non-institutional population) and the unemployment rate since 1967.

Adjusting for the general increase in population tames the continued claims spike down a bit.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows “initial” and “continued” claims, averaged monthly, overlaid with U.S. recessions since 1967.

Also, acceleration and deceleration of unemployment claims has generally preceded comparable movements to the unemployment rate by 3 – 8 months (click for larger version).

Labels: economy, initial jobless claims, unemployment

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What $700K Will Get You:: A two-bedroom house in the Hollywood...

Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, December 16, 2010, by Sarah

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The New “Household” Misery Index: October 2010

Back in the 1970s and 80s the “Misery Index” was popularized as a measure that accurately captured the misery and malaise of the time.

The original Misery Index was a bit too simplistic as it only captured the severity of the two main vexing issues of the time, unemployment and inflation.

Today, inflation, as measured by the annual rate of change of the CPI-U, is not a significant source of financial misery.

Of course, households on fixed income may dispute that fact and many have argued that CPI itself does not accurately capture “real” inflation as it has never accounted for the ridiculous increasing costs of housing and other essentials so for the sake of formulating a new misery index, inflation will factored out.

Another key to formulating a new misery index is to specifically target “household” misery as opposed to including data that might target the miserable state of affairs of the federal government or corporate misery.

The Household Misery Index captures the following trends and weights them equally:

1. The U-3 unemployment rate
2. YOY percent change of the 10-Year moving average of total nonfarm payrolls
3. YOY percent change of the 10-Year moving average of “real” personal income
4. YOY percent change of the 10-year moving average of “real” S&P 500

The unemployment rate captures the misery associated to the threat and severity of a potential bout of unemployment while the annual change of the 10 year moving average of non-farm payrolls captures a more fundamental sense of the overall job market.

The annual change to the 10 year moving average of “real” (adjusted with CPI-U) personal income captures a household’s long term sense of income prospects.

The annual change to the 10 year moving average of “real” (adjusted with CPI-U) S&P 500 captures a household’s long term sense of typical investment prospects.

Unfortunately, all home price series are simply not long enough to include in the formulation but there may be alternative measures that can be included in the future.

The level of misery in October increased 0.01% since September and remained near the peak for this cycle and nearly the highest level seen in 30 years while on a year-over-year basis, misery climbed 0.05%.

Labels: economy, misery index

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Magazine Living: Size Matters

Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, December 15, 2010, by Sarah

The all-American characters of Gary and Elaine have wormed their way into households and hearts aplenty thanks to the ingenuity of Molly Erdman, whose Catalog Living blog points to certain styling curiosities within catalogs. We enlisted Erdman to author a Curbed National column in which she does the same to photos gracing the glossy pages of shelter magazines. Here now, let the games begin.

Photo by William Waldron/Elle Decor

Eyeing the arrangement on the table, Martin could only assume that Gareth had done something really wrong.

· Catalog Living [official site]
· All Magazine Living columns [Curbed National]

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Celebrity Real Estate: Houses of Hip-Hop Powerhouses: Kanye, Diddy, Pharrell, More!

Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Wednesday, December 15, 2010, by Sarah

Photo: Todd Selby

Yesterday, photographer extraordinaire Todd Selby presented a full photogallery of hiphop musician/producer Pharrell Williams's $14M penthouse in Miami, Fla. Filled with cartoonish sculptures, graphic art, and Louis Vuitton paraphernalia, the space befits someone who's completely obsessed with modern design—and who even creates some of it himself. Selby's work prompted us to go back and explore the real estate wheelings and dealings of some of Pharrell's hip-hop cohorts: what they've bought, what they've sold, and where they live.

Sean "Diddy" Combs enlisted the knowhow of celebrity designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz to dress his newest NYC digs (above) with modern furnishings in a silvery, neutral palette. Perhaps the soothing interiors calm the chaos left over from Combs's storied and rather tenous series of past real estate-related transactions in the Big Apple.

While Kanye West has expressed a deep love of baroque furnishings and decor on his Twitter feed, the Hollywood apartment he recently listed for close to $4M tells the story of a different aesthetic altogether (above). Like, say, Jetsons art and computer-controlled everything. Oh, and a painting of West depicted as an angel on the dining room ceiling.

Now that Li'L Wayne has been released from Riker's Island, he can finally make use of his $14M modern (above) on La Gorce, a private island off Miami. Quite an upgrade from being behind bars.

While he's never actually lived in the modest digs, unofficial Chicago spokesperson Common is renting out his two-bedroom investment apartment for a reasonable $2,500 a month (above). He purchased the unit for $402K a couple of years ago; it's his second purchase in the building. Now there's a reason to get chummy with the landlord.

· Pharrell Williams [The Selby]
· May We Remind You That Pharrell Williams Designs Furniture? [Curbed National]
· P. Diddy Sells [NYO]
· The Endless Design- and Decor-Related Tweets of Kanye West [Curbed National]
· Kanye West's Computer-Controlled Hollywood Home [Curbed LA]
· For Sale: Kanye's House [NYMag]
· HOUSE PORN OF THE DAY: Lil Wayne's $14 Million Dollar La Gorce Mansion [Business Insider]
· Rapper Common Renting Out Museum Park Condo [Chicago Breaking Business]
· Common Puts South Loop Condo Up for Rent [Curbed Chicago]

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Index of Stress: December 2010

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently began publishing a new weekly index that seeks to track the general level of financial stress.

As periods of financial stress come and go a whole host of fundamental economic indicators immediately adjust to meet the near and long term expectations of market participants

Interest rates, yields spreads, popular market volatility indices all move in real time giving observers unequivocal evidence of changes general sentiment.

The St. Louis Fed has devised a method of crunching eighteen of these sensitive indices down into one convenient index it calls the St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index (STLFSI).

The latest results of the STLFSI indicate that the level of financial stress has remained largly flat in the last few weeks hovering at a level of .35 at since mid-October.

Labels: economy, financial stress

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