Initial claims are out and they are better, but still not enough to constitute a recovery in the job market.

Initial claims were at 403,000, still above the roughly 375K required for a meager recovery, while the less volatile 4 week moving average climbed to a 7 month high.

In the longer time views, while continuing claims fell, extended and emergency claims rose.

These are awful numbers, and Barack Obama has to be thanking his lucky stars about what a clown show the Republican Presidential campaign has become, because there were also a whole passel of truly anemic economic metrics released today, with the Philadephia Fed survey, the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators, and existing home sales disappointing.