Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
As Expected, Jobless Claims ‘Unexpectedly’ Increase
As Expected, Jobless Claims ‘Unexpectedly’ Increase
Jul 16, 2025 5:23 AM

Today at Bloomberg we find this unexpected news about unemployment:

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to a nine-week high, underscoring the difficulty adjusting the data for seasonal variations such as the Easter holiday and spring recess at schools.

Jobless claims rose by 14,000 to 344,000 in the period ended April 26, the highest level since Feb. 22, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 320,000.

There are two things the media never expects: (1) The Spanish Inquisition and (2) increases in jobless claims. Over the past five years, in 30 of the past 60 months,the media has considered it “unexpected” when jobless claims increase:

April 2009 – New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly (AP)

June 2009 – New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly To 627K, 6.7M Still Unemployed (Huffington Post)

August 2009 – Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly (Washington Post)

October 2009 – New jobless claims rise more than expected(AP)

December 2009 – Jobless claims rise unexpectedly (Christian Science Monitor)

January 2010 – New jobless claims rise unexpectedly (AP)

February 2010 – First-time jobless claims rise unexpectedly(AP)

April 2010 – Initial jobless claims increase unexpectedly (AP)

May 2010 – New jobless claims rise unexpectedly (AP)

June 2010 – “The number of Americans seeking jobless benefits last week unexpectedly rose to a one-month high, indicating firings are staying elevated even as the U.S. economy grows.” (Bloomberg)

July 2010 – Weekly jobless claims rise unexpectedly (The Hill)

August 2010 – Stocks drop as jobless claims rise unexpectedly (AP)

September 2010 – New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly (AP)

October 2010 – US initial weekly jobless claims rise unexpectedly (International Business Times)

January 2011 – “U.S. jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week to their highest level since October, suggesting the labor market is still in a rut despite signs of improvement in the economy.” (Reuters)

February 2011 – First-time jobless claims rise unexpectedly (AP)

April 2011 – Initial Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly (Reuters)

May 2011 – Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly (Bloomberg News)

June 2011 – Jobless claims unexpectedly rise (Reuters)

September 2011 – Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise To 428,000 As Labor Market Stalls (Reuters)

December 2011 – Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise Above 400,000 (AP)

April 2012 – Jobless claims unexpectedly rise last week (Reuters)

June 2012 – US jobless claims unexpectedly rise (Reuters)

August 2012 – Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise (Reuters)

April 2013 – New Jobless Claims Climb Unexpectedly to a 4-Month High (Reuters)

May 2013 – Jobless claims rise unexpectedly, but not by much (Reuters)

June 2013 – “The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid unexpectedly fell last week, . . .” (Reuters)

July 2013 – Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise (Reuters)

December 2013 – Jobless claims unexpectedly jump to highest level since March (L.A. Times)

When an event occurs approximately 50 percent of the time, maybe we should start expecting it.

Related: Explainer: What You Should Know About the Jobs Report

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
NHS forces mentally challenged Catholic woman to have an abortion
If it were possible to localize all the pathologies undermining the West into a single incident, a court ruling handed down on Friday might serve as the one. A British judge has ordered a young Catholic woman with “moderately severe” learning disabilities to have a second-trimester abortion against her will, in a case filed by the publicly funded National Health Service. The circumstances are horrific. The mother, who cannot be named, is in her twenties with a mental parable to...
3 Ways to explain religious freedom to an American
This week is “Religious Freedom Week,” a time set aside by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to “pray, reflect, and take action on religious liberty, both here in this country and abroad.” In honor of the Religious Freedom Week, here are three explanations about what religious freedom means in America. 1. Basic Explanation Religious freedom is a right, given by God and guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, that allows individual people or groups to...
Daily Caller reviews Samuel Gregg’s new book
Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, released a new book titled, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization. In his book, Gregg discusses the dangers that an unbalanced relationship between faith and reason imposes on a society. The Daily Caller, a widely read news and opinion outlet, reviewed Gregg’s new book in an article titled, “New Book Emphasizes the Importance of Faith and Reason for Western Civilization.” The article provides a brief synopsis of the book...
Common grace, community, and culture
Earlier this year I had the honor of moderating a panel discussion, “Common Grace, Community, and Culture,” at the Kuyper Conference at Calvin College and Seminary. The discussion featured J. Daryl Charles, with whom I have the pleasure of coediting the Common Grace volumes in the Kuyper series, Vincent Bacote of Wheaton College, and Jessica Joustra of Redeemer University College and TU Kampen. It was a wide-ranging and substantive discussion. The video is now available and mend it to you:...
2019 G20 Summit: Tariffs and forbearance
As world leaders from a select group of the largest national economies meet in Osaka at the end of this week, they face increasing volatility and uncertainty around some of the basic principles and institutions that bring together their various peoples in the global marketplace. The World Trade Organization may undergo serious reform in the face of hints from President Trump that the United States might withdraw amid broader dissatisfactions. The ongoing tariff battles between China and the United States...
State Department releases latest report on international religious freedom
A wide range of U.S. government agencies and offices use the reports for such efforts as shaping policy and conducting diplomacy. The Secretary of State also uses the reports to help determine which countries have engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe violations” of religious freedom in order to designate “countries of particular concern.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback discussed the report at a special briefing. “This mission is not just...
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization is . . . . AVAILABLE!
After a long gestation, I’m happy to report that my book, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization, published by Regnery Gateway, has just been released and is available for purchase at Amazon. Over the past two weeks, it’s been listed as #1 New Release on Amazon in 5 categories – History of Civilization and Culture; Science and Religion; Ancient Early Civilization History; Church and State; and History of Christianity. The book has already been reviewed in The Stream...
The Laffer Curve vindicated…in Canada
On September 14, 1974, economist Arthur Laffer and three friends had the most productive cocktail discussion in U.S. history. On that day, Laffer famously sketched his U-shaped theory of taxation on a cocktail napkin. It came at the height of the Keynesian ascendancy, just three years after President Richard Nixon proclaimed, “I am now a Keynesian in economics” and as his successor proposed a tax increase. Laffer argued that higher tax rates produce higher tax revenues, but only up to...
The limits of fiscal policy
Note: This is post #126 in a weekly video series on basic economics. The best case for fiscal policy happens during a recession caused by an aggregate demand shock, says economist Alex Tabarrok. Even so, it’s hard to get it right because the U.S. economy is massive plex. In this video by Marginal Revolution University, Tabarrok highlights the three factors for an ideal stimulus—Timely, Targeted, and Temporary—and notes that all of these characteristics present some problems for enacting fiscal policy....
Acton Line podcast: Hong Kong’s freedom coming to an end? SCOTUS takes on regulatory state
Update (Aug. 6): Writing at The National Interest, Gordon C. Chang says “it’s now a revolution.” In an especially tone-deaf press conference Monday, Lam, standing next to eight grim-faced ministers, made no further concessions, either symbolic or substantive, as she struck all the wrong notes if she was trying to calm the situation in her embattled city. Her stern and sometimes ominous words—Lam warned the territory was on the “path of no return”—seemed aimed at an audience of one: Communist...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved