- by New Deal democrat
The star of the show this week was continuing claims, which finally declined below 2,000,000, as they recorded a new pandemic low of 1,956,000:
Since 1974, only two weeks in the late 1980s, and the last 3 years of the last expansion were below this number:
Meanwhile, Initial claims as expected had a post-Thanksgiving seasonal-distortions-driven rebound of 28,000 to 222,000. The 4 week average declined -12,250 to 238,750, the lowest since 1973 except for late 2017 through February 2020:
There simply is no getting around that we are in a labor market Boom at this point. The only thing holding back a full recovery in employment to its pre-COVID level is the continued pandemic itself.
