Initial Jobless Claims Rise After Massachusetts Fraud Revisions

Initial jobless claims ‘confused’ last week, printing 229k (well below the 245k exp and the 242k prior). BUT, and it’s a big but, Massachusetts – after admitting to widespread fraud – has revised its last three months jobless claims data lower by an average of 14k per week.

The result is that claims actually ROSE last week from a revised lower 225k to 229k…

Source: Bloomberg

The last two weeks saw the headline claims revised down 50k jobs (-33k and -17k respectively)

We note that for the second week in a row, MA saw a big decline in claims…

Additionally, Continuing claims continued to trend back below 1.8mm.

Once again, can we really trust this data?