The weekly unemployment statistics are out in this press release.

In the week ending July 25, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 584,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 559,000. The 4-week moving average was 559,000, a decrease of 8,250 from the previous week's revised average of 567,250.

From The Washington Times.

For the week ending July 18, the number of continuing claims for unemployment benefits declined by 54,000 to 6.2 million, the lowest level since April 11.

Workers whose regular jobless benefits expire after the normal 26-week period and who continue to remain unemployed can apply for extended benefits through the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program.

For the week ending July 11, workers collecting EUC benefits increased by 24,518 to a total of 2.66 million. A year ago, only about 127,000 workers were collecting EUC benefits.

The number of workers receiving extended benefits dropped by 37,000, falling to 352,000, the Labor Department reported.

Altogether, nearly 10 million people were collecting jobless benefits for the week ending July 11.

The states with the largest increases in initial jobless claims last week were California (4,290), Michigan (3,654) and Florida (3,291).

So, what is curious are the 2.66 million who have been unemployed for over 26 weeks, moved into extended benefits. Are they counted in the traditional unemployment monthly averages?

The data is muddled at best. For more details on the unemployment stats that one must dig in deep to get even close to a true picture, read unemployment not pointing towards recovery.

See this post for the number of people who will exhaust unemployment benefits and thus fall off the official tally.

The MTGM has a post on how the unemployment rate is now the primary driver of foreclosures.

Maybe a better indicator is food stamps. The last data snapshot I could find, from March 2009 gives record breaking numbers.

SNAP/Food Stamp participation continues to set record levels, with nearly 33.2 million people (one in nine Americans) receiving the benefit in March 2009, according to newly issued Department of Agriculture data.. Over the past twelve months, participation grew by 5.2 million individuals.

If anyone can find the raw data, or anything assembling real time data or graphs on food stamps, please post in the comments.