Continuing Jobless Claims sets (yet another) record

While some people are still happy that the second derivative of first time jobless claims is flat or negative (for those of you who never took calculus---that means that there are fewer people filing for the first time for unemployment insurance benefits compared to the prior week)---the story of the second derivative of continuing claims isn't as chipper.

As you can see from the chart above---Continuing claims continue to set records. Almost 6.8 million Americans are collecting unemployment insurance benefits--That's more than double from last year---and significantly up from the 2000 low of ~2 million.

Based on this data, you can be sure that the unemployment rate in May 2009 will be north of 9%, and it likely won't be below 7% for years to come.