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Unemployment Claims Revisions

By April 20, 2023Commentary

I have been pointing out for several months the fantasy numbers that the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out and then regularly revises when no one is looking.  At this point it isn’t unreasonable to assume that this all happens intentionally.  Here is a great chart, courtesy of Zero Hedge, showing the initial reports on unemployment claims compared to subsequent revisons.  Funny thing how since the start of the year, the first reports, which are all that gets media attention, have consistently painted a rosier picture than actually existed and the gap between initial report and revision is growing.  So the reality is that people are getting laid off in increasing numbers and the job market is much weaker than the administration portrays it to be.

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  • Joe says:

    Curious what is the timing gap between the initial reports and the revised report.

    Since each state has real time data of unemployment claims (each state’s system has nightly updates) , obtaining good real time data from all 50 states should only be 1-3 day delay in having complete data from all 50 states.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I think there may be multiple revisions, and then one final revision a couple of months later, the methodology is on the website, I haven’t looked at it for a while.

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