patrick.net

Continued claims are around 4M:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1FG

There's a 99-week max in most states so the 2009 spike will be rolling off in 2011.

Same graph with initial claims in red:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1FH

crazydesi says

Is this the only # of people who are unemployed in whole US for the week?

As far as I know it is a count of the people who initially applied for unemployment that week. Troy's charts above show this and continuing claims, which a count of the people who are actively reapplying for unemployment.

The BL(&)S reports the unemployment rate in different ways (U1-U6) to reflect who's not working and who's looking for work. There are other measures of unemployment calculated by non-government sources (e.g., Gallup) for comparison.

When people go off of the unemployment rolls, they either 1. get a job 2. enter the limbo of looking for a job with no unemployment check, or 3. exit the labor pool and stop looking for a job.

#1 (theoretically...) shows up in the employment reports (BL&S, ADP, etc.), #3 shows up in the (declining) participation rate, and I don't know what happens in case #2... I guess it just gets reported in the participation rate.