While I touched on unemployment duration at the end of my last blog, this is a very important subject and deserves a bit more elaboration. Quite simply being out of work for three or four weeks is a very different experience with very different economic implications than being out of work for six months to a year or more. The focus on the total number of unemployed obscures that reality. The thing that makes this recession so much different than the ones that have gone before it is how long people are staying out of work once they become unemployed. Yeah if you get laid off for a few weeks, it can be a pain in the butt, but essentially it is just an unplanned vacation. It does not really affect your long term financial solvency, nor do your job skills diminish significantly. After six months, regular state unemployment ...

Software technology provider COPsync, Inc. announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office to install its real-time data collection and information sharing software in the county’s patrol vehicles. The contract will cover 48-months and is valued at approximately $340,000.

COPsync’s software assists working officers in a variety of duties via the touch of a button. In addition to real-time information sharing capabilities, the software includes data collection user interfaces designed by law enforcement officers to efficiently expedite the paperwork process. The COPsync software is the first and only integrated software product that provides a real-time, in-car, nationwide information-sharing network for law enforcement officers. The user can immediately identify criminals, communicate with other officers, and access life saving and mission critical information. The company’s innovative technology allows for efficiency and accuracy.

COPsync CEO Russell Chaney commented, “We are pleased to welcome Tom Green County to

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Ugly, just plain ugly -- that's the best way to describe the September employment report. The economy dropped 263,000 jobs in the month, and 7.2 million now since the start of the recession back in December of 2007. The total number of unemployed rose to 15.1 million, an increase of 7.6 million since the recession began. That brought the unemployment rate up to 9.8%. Silver linings were few and far between in this report. One of the few good news items was that the number of jobs lost in August was revised to 201,000 from 216,000. However, July was revised down to a loss of 304,000 jobs from 276,000. This is the highest unemployment rate since the middle of 1983. Back in the early 1980’s, demographics (Baby Boomers and women entering the labor force) made the natural rate of unemployment much higher than it is today, so ...

Tomorrow afternoon all eyes will be on the Federal Reserve, which is currently holding one of its every-six-weeks get togethers. I and probably the rest of the world expect no change in the Fed Funds rate. It is currently near zero, so there is no room for further cuts, and it is extremely premature for them to raise rates again. The real interest will be in deciphering the policy statement. I would expect a more upbeat tone about the pace of economic growth and continued confidence that they have inflation under control. There is about a mile of economic slack in the system, and while there are some indications that it is starting to be reeled in (for example, capacity utilization up two months in a row) we are a long, long way from any tension on the line. As the graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows, ...

Last week (8/29), there were 570,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance -- down from 574,000 the week before, but that 574,000 was revised up from 570,000, so it really is about flat with last week. The four-week moving average ticked up again, for the third week in a row now, but remains well below the peak set in mid-April. The current four-week average of 571,250 is 4000 above last week. The Chart below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) puts the recent uptick in perspective. You have to look very closely to see it. I remain convinced we have seen the highs for the cycle, but we are probably in for a long period of jagged sideways movement. That was the pattern in the last two recessions, where initial claims stayed elevated for about two years after hitting their highs. Historically, it has been the peak that has signaled the end of ...

For Immediate Release

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Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

New Jobless Claims Disappoint

According to the National Unemployment Law project, 500,000 people will exhaust their extended benefits by the end of September, and 1.5 million will do so by the end of the year. With the extensions, these folks have been out of work for well over

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At the end of the second quarter, 4.3% of all residential mortgages were in some part of the foreclosure process, up from 3.85% at the end of the first quarter and 2.75% a year ago. In addition, on a seasonally adjusted basis, 9.24% of all mortgages were delinquent (behind by at least one payment), up from 9.12% at the end of March, and just 6.41% at the end of June 2008. Both were records since the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) started keeping track back in 1972. On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, the delinquency rate was not quite as bad at 8.86%, but still a record. That means that 13.16% of all residential mortgages (NSA basis) are in trouble. With about 51 million houses with mortgages in the country, that means 6.71 million bad mortgages out there. With the number of people out of work still rising, the problem is ...

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 576,000, an increase of 15,000. This was in stark contrast to the expected decline to the 550,000 level. The four-week moving average rose by 4,250 to 570,000. This is the second week in a row it has risen. To be sure, we are well below (by 89,000) the peak levels set back in mid-April, and it seems unlikely to me that we will surpass that level in this cycle. Historically, a peak in the four week average of initial claims has coincided with the end of recessions. It appears that we are starting the pattern we saw in the last two recessions (see graph from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ below) where rather than coming straight down off the peak, there is an initial decline and an uneven jagged plateau after the peak. In the recessions of the 1970’s and the 1980’s after the ...

According to The New York Times, the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) is pretty much a failure. HAMP is the Treasury plan to get banks to modify mortgages of people who cannot afford their current mortgages and are in danger of being foreclosed upon. So far only 15% of those eligible have been offered help and only 9% have actually been helped. The biggest mortgage servicers are some of the banks that were major TARP recipients. At Bank of America (BAC) only 4% of eligible mortgages have been modified and at Wells Fargo (WFC) only 6% have been. Citibank (C) and J.P. Morgan (JPM) have done a somewhat better job at 15% and 20%, respectively. The apparent reason for the very slow progress is that the program was all carrot and no stick. The program offered banks $1000 for each mortgage they ...

The Case Schiller home price data looks to be much better than I expected. The data is for May, and relative to April the composite 10 index rose by 0.41%, while the composite 20 index was up 0.45% -- on a not-seasonally adjusted basis! There is some seasonality to the data, however, and when the seasonal adjustments come into play the C-10 fell by 0.21% and the C-20 was down by 0.16%. Still, this is a substantial decline in the pace of deterioration, with the C-10 down at an annualized rate of just 2.5% for the month and the C-20 falling at just a 1.7% rate. Compare this to the year-over-year rate of decline (including the May data) showing a 16.8% decline for the C-10 and a 17.1% decline for the C-20. Some of the individual city data was interesting, and since the season affects all cities at ...