Today the Labor Department released its report on initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending January 20. Today's announced figure jumped to 413,000 from last week's revised level of 316,000.

According to analysts, last week's number was unusually low because severe weather prevented newly-unemployed workers from getting to their state employment offices. Conversely, this week's number was felt to be unusually high because, after the snow had been cleared, all those folks were able to get out and file their claims.

To smooth out the effects of short-term fluctuations such as these, the Labor Department also publishes figures for the four-week moving average of first-time claims. This is obtained by adding up the weekly numbers for the past four weeks and dividing by four. The latest value for the four-week average is 373,750. This number is 10.33% higher than the figure for a year ago.

Last week's unemployment data seemed to indicate that the ranks of the insured unemployed had dropped sharply during the first two weeks of January. I thought that seemed odd at the time, and I was right. Today's report revised the January 6 annualized insured-unemployed figure up to 2.54 million, versus the previously reported 2.38 million. Today's report pegged the number for the week ended January 13 at 2.77 million.

Meanwhile, The National Association of Realtors reported today that sales of previously-owned homes dropped by 3.2% in December. This followed a drop of 1.7% in November and another drop of 1.9% in October. Total sales of existing homes during 1995 were down 3.4% from 1994.

This slowing of housing sales has been reflected in the new homes market, as well. Yesterday, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes had fallen for four consecutive months.

What's doubly troubling about all this is that it is occurring at a time when home-loan interest rates are the lowest they've been in almost two years.

I like to think of sales of existing homes as a barometer of the sentiment of that fairly-affluent segment of the population that can afford to consider changing homes. It seems that lately these folks have become increasingly cautious about making any new financial commitments.

And, speaking of barometers of sentiment, how about those results from yesterday's ABC News/Money Magazine consumer confidence poll? (The complete results are available at keyword: ABC, right here on AOL)

The ABC/Money poll for the month ending January 21 showed that consumer confidence had registered its lowest reading since September, 1994. 69% of the respondents rated the economy negatively and 68% thought it was a bad time to spend money. Little more than half (56%) of those surveyed rated their personal finances favorably.

ABC/Money combines the results of the questions on the national economy, spending plans, and personal finances to get a composite indicator that they call the Consumer Comfort Index. At present this index is reading -21 (on a scale between -100 and +100). This compares with an average reading of -15 last year and -19 for 1994. The index averaged -39 during the recessionary period in the early years of this decade.

Summing up: The ranks of the newly-unemployed are swelling, sales of new and existing homes are trending downward -- despite lower interest rates, and consumers responding to the latest ABC/Money survey find the present economic climate decidedly uncomfortable.

Byline: Lafferty (MF Merlin)