- by New Deal democrat
While this morning’s initial jobless claims increased from last week, they were better than any other readings since the pandemic started. Continuing claims had their “least worst” week yet.
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 52,776 to 891,510, still only the second week under 1,000,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. After seasonal adjustment (which is far less important than usual at this time), claims rose by 135,000 to 1,106,000:
Continuing claims, on both an un-adjusted and seasonally adjusted basis, however, continued to decline, by 931,998 to 14,265,344, and by 636,000 to 14,840,000 respectively:
Continuing claims have fallen by roughly 40% from their peaks in early May.
So, within the context of the pandemic recession, this counts as “good” (or continuing “less awful”) news. Nevertheless, both initial and continuing claims remain at far worse levels than even at their worst during the Great Recession.
