The Economy

U.S. Leading Indicators Up, Jobless Claims Down

March 17, 2005

The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators for the U.S. now stands at 115.6 (1996=100), following a one-tenth percentage point increase in February. The index fell three-tenths of a percent in January and rose by the same amount in ...

John McClenahen

The leading index, an indication of economic direction for the next three to six months, "has now been increasing slightly since last October," notes the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group. The index's current trend, it says, suggests that the U.S. economy will continue to expand, although perhaps more slowly than its long-term annual rate of about 3.5%.

With several private forecasters expecting a growth rate greater than 4% during the current calendar quarter, the slowdown, if it comes, would seem likely to take place during the three remaining quarters of 2005.

Reflecting current U.S. economic strength, first-time claims for unemployment insurance declined last week. For the week ending March 12, the seasonally adjusted figure for initial jobless claims was 318,000, some 10,000 fewer than the revised figure of 328,000 during the previous week, the U.S. Labor Department reported on March 17. The department's four-week moving average of initial claims, often a better indicator of underlying labor market conditions, rose slightly last week to 316,500 from the previous week's revised average of 312,750.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.