Surprise, Surprise: Jobless claims up

From Bloomberg:

Initial jobless claims rose by 15,000 to 627,000 in the week ended June 20, from a revised 612,000 the week before, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance gained by 29,000 in the prior week, to 6.74 million.

The four-week moving average of initial claims, a less volatile measure, rose to 617,250 from 616,750.

The cheerleaders who latched on to any signs of improvement, however slight, in past weeks now look foolish. Unemployment is still deteriorating.

We are in the middle of a multi-year decline in the U.S. No matter what the government does, there is little they can do to stop the tidal wave coming our way. I will talk about long-term cycles in coming days to extrapolate.