Graph of the Day: Weekly Unemployment Claims, 1971-2009

From Calculated Risk. I’d like to try fitting a curve to that nonlinear growth post-Jan 2006. Parabolic? Exponential?

The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims:

In the week ending March 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 654,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 645,000. The 4-week moving average was 650,000, an increase of 6,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 643,250. …

Unemployment Claims: Continued Claims at Record 5.3 Million