by Calculated Risk on 4/30/2009 08:45:00 AM

The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims:

In the week ending April 25, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 631,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 645,000. The 4-week moving average was 637,250, a decrease of 10,750 from the previous week's revised average of 648,000.
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The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 18 was 6,271,000, an increase of 133,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 6,138,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,076,000, an increase of 131,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,944,500.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The first graph shows weekly claims and continued claims since 1971.

The four week moving average is at 637,250, off 21,500 from the peak 3 weeks ago.

Continued claims are now at 6.27 million - the all time record.

Next week I'll add the chart that normalizes the data by covered employment.

This is another very weak report, however the decline in the four-week average of weekly claims suggests there is a reasonable chance that the peak in weekly claims has happened for this cycle.