NY Times: Unemployment Claims Send Another Worrisome Note

[TomCADem]

I am somewhat surprised that the NY Times was able cover a story about the economic harm that Americans are suffering under Trump, rather than simply amplifying Trump's efforts to divide and distract the American people with racist rhetoric.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/unemployment-claims-send-another-worrisome-note/ar-BB18UIXR?li=BBnb7Kz

Despite some signs of economic revival, the outlook for American workers remains treacherous, with layoffs continuing to claim hundreds of thousands of jobs a week.

The weekly figures on unemployment claims from the Labor Department on Thursday showed no relief, reflecting what Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays, said was “a transition to a slower pace of recovery, and one that will be more uneven.”

The department reported that more than 857,000 workers filed new claims for state unemployment insurance last week, before seasonal adjustments, a slight increase from the previous week. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the total was 884,000, unchanged from the revised figure for the previous week.

In addition, about 839,000 new claims were tallied under a federal program called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which provides assistance to freelancers, part-time workers and others who do not ordinarily qualify for state benefits. That figure, which is not seasonally adjusted, was up from 748,000 the previous week.

[Blue Owl]

1. K&R

[progree]

2. Continuing claims in all programs has risen from 27.0 M to 29.6 M in 2 weeks

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS, Department of Labor, 9/10/20
https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

In the week ending September 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 884,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 881,000 to 884,000. The 4-week moving average was 970,750, a decrease of 21,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 750 from 991,750 to 992,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 9.2 percent for the week ending August 29, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 29 was 13,385,000, an increase of 93,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 38,000 from 13,254,000 to 13,292,000. The 4-week moving average was 13,982,000, a decrease of 523,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 9,500 from 14,496,250 to 14,505,750.

(snip)

UNADJUSTED DATA

(snip)

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending August 22 was 29,605,064, an increase of 380,379 from the previous week. There were 1,591,456 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019 ((this paragraph not seasonally adjusted, they don't have a seasonally adjusted version of this number -Progree)).

Not good that initial claims is flat in a so-called Great American Comeback. And that the total number claiming benefits is going up -- it was 27.0 million 2 weeks before. Note too the discrepancy between the 13.6 million unemployed in last Friday's jobs report (the one with the 8.4% unemployment rate), and the 29.6 million claiming benefits.