Initial Claims Say It's the 1980s, Continuing Claims Say It's the 1990s. Which One Is It?

Yesterday's Initial Claims and Continuing Claims figures came in relatively good on Thursday.

Initial Claims dropped almost 9% from the previous week, coming in at a seasonally adjusted 255K.

Continuing Claims also improved, coming in down 0.4% to a seasonally adjusted 2.207 million.

Both provide evidence that the U.S. economy is on stable footing.

Initial Claims Picture

Here's a look at the Initial Claims picture.

Unsurprisingly if you're a follower of the American economy, Initial Claims are floating close to all-time lows.

The 255K Claims figure released by the BLS is the lowest since 1973.

Here's a business cycle look.

Each line on the figure represents the year when a recovery started.  The horizontal axis represents the...