The combined picture adds those with long-term and expired benefits to continued claims.
Today the Department of Labor updated Unemployment Claims data for the first time since the government shutdown. But the lead picture tells a much better story.
Initial Unemployment Claims
- In the week ending November 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 216,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 2,000 from 220,000 to 222,000.
- The 4-week moving average was 223,750, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 500 from 224,250 to 224,750.
Continued Claims
- The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending November 15 was 1,960,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 21,000 from 1,974,000 to 1,953,000.
- The 4-week moving average was 1,955,750, an increase of 750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 5,250 from 1,960,250 to 1,955,000.
Since people are highly likely to file for benefits, I don’t dispute the numbers.
However, the continued claims number, rising very slowly, does not tell the full story. Once someone loses a job it is difficult to find another. And as soon as someone exhausts their benefits they are no longer counted.
Combined Picture Monthly Average Through September
- Continued Claims: 1,814,000
- 27+ Weeks Unemployment: 1,814,000
- 15+ Weeks Unemployment: 3,105,000
- Continued Claims Plus 27+ Weeks: 3,738,000
- Continued Claims Plus 15+ Weeks: 5,029,000
Maximum Weeks of Unemployment Insurance
Chart courtesy of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
The combination of expiring benefits and job hopping reduces eligibility for making unemployment claims.
Also the self-employed are not eligible for unemployment insurance although they have to pay into the system.
Ability for the self-employed to collect benefits would lead to fraud. However, paying for benefits that one can never collect is an outright scam.
Four Factors Making Things Worse
- The self-employed have no benefits and cannot file an unemployment claim.
- Illegal immigrants are hesitant to file a claim, even those who have been working here for years.
- Illegal immigrants are highly unlikely to respond to BLS phone calls regarding unemployment. This means the unemployment level itself is undercounted.
- Twelve states have a maximum of 21 weeks of benefits. Seven states including Florida offer 16 weeks of benefits or less. Once someone maxes out benefits, they drop off continued claims counts.
The unemployment level is 7,603,000. The 15+ weeks or longer unemployment number is 3,105,000.
Of those unemployed, over 40.8 percent, and rising fast, have been unemployed for at least 15 weeks.
Reasons the Numbers Are Worse than They Look
Don’t be fooled by the slow rise in continued claims. For the reasons noted, it’s a poor estimate of the problem.
Initial claims is not a good measure either. The self-employed have no benefits and cannot file. Tariffs hit small businesses and the self-employed disproportionately.
And BLS sampling procedures are known to be suspect. Immigrants and self-employed are not properly counted.
The grim-looking lead chart is in reality much worse than it looks. Finally, the chart lags. These numbers are only through September.
Labor Market Woes
November 7, 2025: Revelio’s Realistic Assessment of the US Labor Market and Jobs – Sinking Fast
Kudos to Revelio for providing an excellent set of jobs-related data.
November 14, 2025: ADP Pulse of Net Private Job Creation Drops to Negative 11,250 Per Week
How fast is the economy shedding jobs?
My assessment is fast. Especially small businesses that I believe are under-sampled.
November 22, 2025: BLS Nonfarm Jobs Revisions Are Negative 26 Out of Last 32 Months
The latest revision sets jobs at -4,000 in August from initial report of +22,000.
Consumer Confidence
Labor market woes and rising grocery prices show up in two distinct surveys.
For discussion, please see US Consumer Confidence Drops Sharply in November, a Big Warning
This Conference Board measure mirrors the University of Michigan sentiment reading.
the economy does not create or shed jobs
the economy is an observable aggregate consequence, not a creator or killer
*the economy is a phenomenon and so is money
and there is no mechanism to measure the economy, only to compare what was
Self employed Schedule C people do not pay into the system nor do partnership self employed individuals
If one elects to be taxed as an S Corp then the owner becomes an employee of S Corp and then will pay into the system but then they can also apply for benefits. This allows for fraud in one person S Corps especially right at retirement
A Covid expection was made in 2020 allowing self employed to claims benefits even though they had never paid into the system
The above discussion is about unemployment taxes and benefits. The new family leave rules in some states can cover self employed individuals.
Grim retail sales data fuels concerns about health of US economyConsumer confidence drops to second-lowest level since pandemic as inflation lingers
https://archive.ph/20251125212508/https://www.ft.com/content/62539bfd-1b5b-4cde-af0e-a210e6a3d79a#selection-1565.0-1569.84
OT
https://www.unz.com/bhua/chinas-rebound-in-societal-trust/
Beijing’s anti-corruption program specifically has a 10-year accountability “claw-back” clause. It specifies an official is held accountable for any corruption or misuse of power during his term for up to 10 years after he leaves the post,
It also requires a full audit when officials leave their posts, including for promotion or retirement.
Literally millions of officials from Politburo Standing Committee member to village chiefs have been investigated, prosecuted, removed and jailed in a running campaign that promises to go after “tigers” and “flies”.
Just last month, 9 senior military general officers were removed from their posts and put under prosecution.
This includes the Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Commission, who is second in command in the military hierarchy headed by President Xi himself.
Many in the West characterize China’s anti-corruption drive as internal factional struggles. But the characterization is naïve and entirely misses the point that many officials, who are prosecuted for corruption, were promoted during President Xi’s term and some by himself.
That sounds like a great idea for the US to implement!
But not just for corruption. I think we need it for any politician who makes promises.
Not sure how much longer the US can withstand trumpnomics.
If you ignore the artificial covid spike, the graph shows that a perfectly smooth parabolic basing pattern has been forming for years. That’s one of many reasons why I am firmly in the “this time time is not different” crowd.
Does anyone have an opinion as to whether or not the two national guard troops shot today in DC has anything to do with our courageous Dems using the military as political pawns? This seems like more than a coincidence.
All of the TDS / Anti ICE & military rhetoric floating around online seems to be getting worse. Just wondering, since we’ve got all of this political / terrorism going on, and 95% of it seems to be coming from the left & Islamic terrorists.
Posted on the wrong debate, this is about stock and retirement.
Dude, in case you haven’t noticed, Mish hasn’t posted on this exact incident yet. And he may not for all I know.
You do understand the point of getting out ahead of things though, right?
Probably not the video – More likely simmering Irritation over troops in DC in the first place
You’re probably right. It has absolutely nothing to do with the incident. It’s just a total coincidence, not even close to a trigger.
We’re very fortunate though that Biden resettled all of these Afghans. That’s for sure.
They are courageous, as the subsequent prosecution showed. And no, that video likely has nothing to do with it. People being detained and dragged away without due process by masked individuals is a much more likely cause. And of course, the illegal presence of the National Guard is by itself a provocation. A deliberate one at that.
Who’s been terrorising the Muslim World for the past several hundred years? Look at the terrorists you pay taxes to and re-elect.
It’s not just the Muslim world, of course. European-American regimes terrorize each other too, as their oligarch controllers jockey for position.
…
I don’t bother reading your comments normally. But the uniformly negative votes piqued my interest momentarily…
I think it takes tremendous bigotry built on double standards to look at a world in which European-American regimes destabilize, fund terrorists, bomb the rest of the world and then say “Muslim terrorists!”.
Apparently his asylum was approved by the orange dotard’s administration. Spin spin spin!!!!
Agreed. Everyone needs to tone down the rhetoric. I figure about 10% of the population has a mental illness, 1% may be violent. And all they need to do is sit down and listen to the MSM to get “triggered.” Not too hard to buy a knife or gun or drive a vehicle into a crowd.
Job losses in the face of reported deportations of 1.6 to 2 million illegal aliens?
My first reaction is that the reported deportations are more bullshit from Trump and the true number is more likely to be 100,000 given his penchant for outright lies.
Then it occurs to me that if jobs are being lost at a significant rate along with a declining participation rate plus deportations? We have a serious erosion of the base of our economic chain.
Whales can not survive without plankton…
>>>
Inflation is accelerating, but looks like the Fed now has an excuse to cut rates because they care about jobs. They care about the little people. They really do.
The bond market, the auto market and housing (particularly rental) markets are showing deflation now – to my eye, anyway.
I agree, Mish, this doesn’t look good. My main take aways are that continued claims have been on a slow upward trend over the past two+ years. Also, the threshold for a recession appears to be ~ 2.5M. If we get a decent sized spurt upwards, then I’d say it’s really time to be worried. At this rate, it may take another 12 months to get to a critical level. However, it’s great that you continue to post these graphs periodically. It makes it easier to see if the trend has changed.
When wage growth falls below 3%, there is a problem. “Increasing unemployment” is a meaningles measure while wage growth is high. Wage growth above 3% means no meaningful competition for jobs, hence a “false” reading being measured by the unemployment rate. Put another way, if wage growth were 10%, then an unemployment rate of 20% would be meaningless. There is no stress in a labor market until people are willing to take any wage they can get.
PS The current labor participation rate is 62.4%, further proving my point that unemployment numbers are meaningless. Wage growth is all that matters when gauging the true health of the labor market. The further wage growth is away from the inflation rate, the more that monetary and fiscal policy are out of balance. Right now, the labor market is way out of balance, in favor of labor. A rate cut is absolutely the wrong move at this juncture.
I can’t take the labor participation numbers seriously in a time when the boomer generation is retiring en masse, so many people work gig/cash jobs and when so many are receiving ridiculous amounts of “public assistance”.
Even with all that, the trend is still interesting I think
Final set of numbers, yearly growth rates, to drive the point home:
Fed inflation target: 2%
PCE headline inflation number: 2.7%
CPI headline 3.0
Real Personal Income growth: 1.94%, floor of 4.64% nominal growth
ADP nominal wage growth: 4.5% job stayers, 6.6% job changers
Wage growth is common at the beginning of a recession because the less productive are the first to get cut. In addition low wage jobs proliferate in more economically sensitive areas like hospitality. Accelerating wage growth happened at the beginning of the 1982, 2000, and 2020 recessions. Real wages fell at the beginning of the financial crisis, but exploded higher in the middle of it.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
My point is that the Fed has no credibility concerning its 2% inflation target. The Fed is a sham, political hack organization.
To go along with rising unemployment, this article offers some ugly numbers to ponder over “Thanksgiving”:
Limiting it to the last year is very much trying to dump it on Trump’s head when this trend has been happening since the covid stimulus days kicked off. Trump started it, but Biden put it into maximum overdrive.
It wasn’t Biden specifically. It was the people around him and Dems in particular. The Dem party is the “nanny” party. They want to coddle everyone, rehabilitate every criminal, make every idiot equal to a genius…
God yes. The two Trump administrations have not been rehabilitating criminals through crazy pardons at all. For example for insurrectionist traitors. Or billionaires bribing themselves to freedom.
The idea that one party and one party alone is responsible for the current political climate is silly, and if you point to one party then the republicans under trump are the ones to have trampled the law consistently. As you well know.
You should well know that Trump is a special case, neither politically Dem or Republican, just looney.
Fries from a restaurant are a discretionary purchase. People can easily say no and if enough people did, the prices would be cut because potatoes are still very cheap.
[rotflol] You work as an economist, yes?
Not only fries but a very large percentage of restaurant food is discretionary. No need to be an economist. I buy groceries and eat at home, saves a lot. You can buy a 5lb bag of potatoes at walmart for around $3-3.50. Just bake them in the microwave, a lot cheaper and healthier than fries. Expensive fries is just one of the many effects of massive deficit spending/ignorant selfish robbing of future generations.
I was raised in a different time, but our family only ate out a few times a year, and we grew and canned over a hundred quart jars of tomatoes, froze bushels of beans, stored carrots, fruit, etc.
I eat out multiple times a week now like most everyone else now.
But you’re right, fast food is discretionary.
My brother was laid off as manager of a sales team this past spring. I’m pretty sure his UI benefits have been exhausted. He got such a golden handshake that he took the summer off instead of trying to find another job. Now that he is looking, he’s had one phone screen in the past 6 weeks. I doubt he will find anything in the next 2-3 years.
Excellent analysis.
Winning
The labor participation rate continues to drop so if unemployment is rising as the labor participation rate is dropping then things must be really bad.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/
The social security snapshot has not been updated since August 2025 where it used to be updated monthly before. I shutter to think what the numbers show.
This rates to drop over time due to demographics.
But I wonder if we have an oh shit moment for retired boomers if stocks take a big dive
Most baby boomers don’t have that much money in retirement accounts.
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/average-retirement-savings
About 500k total and that’s the median and if we follow the 80% control 20% rule, that probably means 80% have way less than 500k and 20% have way more than 500k.
If boomers are banking on their home equity for retirement and housing deteriorates more then it’ll get real ugly real fast.
In my circles, they don’t seem to. I moved mine out too, into different forms of investment, more for small income, and keep investments going too. Homes (paid off) are certainly a cushion, but HELOC’s are out of the question for most. You need steady, and dependable income. You become “House Poor” as thy say. Selling is then the primary way to unveil the cash. I found out early on in life about this dilemma…
In my circles of Boomers, I don’t see so much in stocks as investments, but rather received when they left a company, profit sharing type, and sell off here and there for various reasons good and bad. Not saying there is not money there.
Boomers have been trained to “Buy the dip” like no other generation. Will they suddenly sell the market and move to bonds or some other “safer” investment as they age?
Generations have a herd mentality, and for some undefined reason they are triggered into a similar behavior pattern. Naturally this generation will be different to other generations because they have seen such incredible change in technology and have lived in a relatively peaceful society.
Any societal shift in investment patterns will be disruptive by nature and if it is a pulling of funds from stocks into bonds or precious metals there will be profound winners and losers.
If institutions recognize the pattern occurring and front run the sell? Boomers will get crushed and wealth will continue to concentrate.
My hope is they stay invested in stocks and there is no massive selloff, but hope is a shitty strategy! Prepare for anything and everything…
– Will they suddenly sell the market and move to bonds or some other “safer” investment as they age?
> From nearly all I speak with, besides the very wealthy, it’s all 100% about Security as they Age, Me Included.
Many don’t or can’t depend on anyone to come through for them. We see what happens when you’re forced to move into the old school version. Kids take money too and it’s an issue, as they get the control of it for legal reasons. I have worked in the industry to see this behavior, and have these discussions, as I myself now begin to enter these upcoming questions…
– If institutions recognize the pattern occurring and front run the sell? Boomers will get crushed and wealth will continue to concentrate.
> Gold just happens to be exactly one of those very Investment’s that rely on this behavior, and the rewards that it can and does often provide imo.
I do not have much physical gold but I sure do have mining stocks. and they have appreciated so much that the capital gains would hammer me pretty hard if I re-balanced. So I sell covered calls on them whenever they are hitting new highs and roll the options if the underlying stock penetrates up above the strike price. The weekly options provide substantial income…
AI is permanently and exorably gobbling away at more and more jobs every month.
This will ultimately be deflationary until the large majority of jobs are performed by AI and its robot workers. Then everything will be free and the need for money and retirement savings will disappear.
There is ZERO scenario where “everything will be free” – zero. Where exactly will food come from that’s 100% free? AI robots planting seeds, watering, harvesting, distributing, delivering to your door?
Walk me through how will that happen. Who will manufacture the robots? What will be their energy source? How will crops get to your door? EV trucks and cars? Who will manufacture them? What will be their energy source?
And what happens when there’s a natural disaster and crops are lost? Will robots magically create wheat out of the air?
There is ZERO scenario where it will all be free. You can repeat that over and over again but it’s not going to happen.
>> There is ZERO scenario where “everything will be free” – zero.
That’s why I suggested an energy-backed currency, a UBI, a yield on UBI saved as an incentive to save for when you really need it or to invest it back into the system to expand capacity, and an exponential tax rate on savings to prevent dynastic wealth.
IIRC Jojo didn’t like it. Not sure anyone did…
As for your disturbing lack of faith… 😉
Bots will harvest everything, take care of logistics, build more bots, invent new cures, build fusion reactors, etc.
I hate the crypto *hype*. But it might be useful in an economy where humans and bots trade with each other.
We have proof you’re correct MPO.
A World Leader in Robotics, and a World Leader in Food Shortage’s as well, China would most certainly “Do It ALL For FREE” if it could be done…
It cannot be done now, but it will be able to be done in the not distant future with the exponential development curve that AI technology is on, not only in the US but in China and other countries as well.
While you very well may be right, I am not nearly sold and on the AI bandwagon just yet. I follow it a bit and have not been all that impressed so far.
You’re not following the right sources.
Ai will be another competitor for jobs. Like out sourcing to another nation/ illegal immigrants/ mechanical improvements in production. Think the effect overall will be lowering wages
A competitor means that humans would have a chance of beating out an AI enabled robot or botnet.
That is unlikely in any situation except those where real creativity is needed. And we yet don’t know whether/if AI will be able to become creative in its own right.
Not true…AI is already being asked to do many menial things, like deliver you food in a little robot that tools down the sidewalk, or take your drive through order. It is definitely intended to replace people in all levels of work.
Just out, for your consideration:
What part of AI controlled robots will do EVERYTHING is not clear? They will do all the jobs that humans do now. They will maintain themselves, enhance themselves, build new/upgraded versions as needed.
Food will be grown or produce (Soylent) and be made available either through stores or delivery.
What is so difficult with this concept? That is beyond your ability to imagine?
The problem is as to how an AI will assume control, enabling this future scenario to play out?
People benefiting from the system as it exists currently are clearly not going to give up their stations at the top of the power pyramid freely and easily. There will have to be some sort of rebellion against the system as it then exists by the masses that puts an AI in control, because the masses believe that this will give them better lives (like the Mandamni election in NYC) or forcible assumption of power by an AI.
I’ve posted one such possible scenario as to how the latter might happen multiple times in the past here. A shame you didn’t read it or couldn’t imagine it occurring but here it is again for everyone else.
Your problem is that you are an old dog mentally, if not chronologically, who can’t learn new tricks. You lack imagination and I wager this permeates your reality across all you do or attempt.
– Quiet War: This is often how the AI takeover is described, and even using ‘war’ seems overly dramatic. It was more a slow usurpation of human political and military power, while humans were busy using that power against each other.
> So you’re thrilled with the idea of creating AI that will take over eventually, by what this implies?
– Those same people ordering the destruction of the AI, found themselves weaponless, in environments utterly out of their control, and up against superior forces.
> Your even more thrilled at the thought of AI being far superior in Intelligence, Power, and Overall against Humans?
– And it is very difficult to motivate people to revolution, when they are extremely comfortable and well off.
> So the comfort and enjoying all you need and want, will over take your understanding that it’s only temporary and if that can happen, then anything can happen? We will ultimately be overwhelmed and thus overtaken by robots, so to speak…
>> Not buying it, or the fact that Humans will sit and watch themselves be controlled by robots. I understand the slow, unseen, not worried about as you bask in comfort, and then are suddenly controlled, but I don’t see that occurring either. Still Highly Skeptical…
Who says that AI will need or serve humans if it gains consciousness?
Natural resources will never be free, except in the demented mind of a new ager.
What if humans had all the natural resources of the entire solar system? Would that change your POV?