Based on Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, admittedly lagging, there is little or no improvement in the number of unemployed.
My “All Continued Claims” chart is the sum of state claims, federal claims, and various pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) claims.
All claims lags state continued claims by two weeks.
State Continued Claims
State continued claims dipped slightly to 17.338 million but have remained above 15 million for 13 weeks.
Based on trends in PUA claims, any improvement at the state level is likely a mirage.
Primary PUA Claims
Primary PUA claims rose for the 4th week to a record 14.283 million.
Initial State Claims
Initial claims turn into continued claims in a week. But people drop off continued claims if they find a job or expire all their benefits.
The number of initial claims is down from the pandemic surge but is very elevated historically.
People must first file at the state level but some do not qualify. And some who did qualify exhausted state benefits and now need to apply for PUA.
Not a Pretty Picture
The trends suggest the unemployment picture is not improving much. Instead, people who qualified at the state level now need PUA assistance.
Add it up and there are 20 to 30 million people unemployed.
Things About to Get Worse
With reopenings in reverse, and airlines in severe trouble, things are about to get worse.
- American Airlines is in Deep Financial Stress
and will shed 16,000 or more jobs. - United Warns It May Cut 36,000 Employees
- A Surge in Small Business Bankruptcies is Underway
- That Fewer People Pay Their Rent on Time in July suggests more people are struggling.
- Phone Data Shows the Retail Recovery Has Stalled in Covid Hotspots
- Patients Stranded in Emergency Rooms as Hospitals Fill Up
Trump Claims to Have Saved 51 Million Jobs
If you are looking for pure nonsense, here you go: Trump Claims to Have Saved 51 Million Jobs
Mish
Fed pump trillions $$ (maybe quadrillions) into Wall Street and the banks,give billions in free money, no questions asked to Bezos and old man Buffett while major cities turn into homeless 3rd world crime riddled squalor!That’s the Republicon legacy!
Our drywall repairs are still working. Thank goodness we’re considered essential! https://www.eriedrywall.com/
I’d love you to do just a little fact checking before posting drivel…
Hey – those 30 million should just “find something new” …the new catchphrase that Ivanka is selling along with Goya beans. They don’t need unemployment checks, Right, it’s their fault? Silly unemployed people should have seen this coming and learned to code years ago. Oh wait – are programmers losing jobs too?
Certainly seems likely that antibody response is short term. Logical that it wouldn’t be any better than our response to the coronavirus that cause common cold like symptoms. Possible good news was the vaccine test that indicated it also produced a t-cell response. So maybe that is also a natural response to COVID-19 and will last longer.
Other studies are reporting high rates of residual impacts post infection. So can’t just go ‘ok another flu strain’. Looking like ongoing adaption will be required. Which sucks but, will reduce the spread of other diseases as well. So gains in productivity to offset to the cost of that. And at some point more virus will arise and we will be better able to deal with them
There is a drip, drip of reports that Covid-19 antibodies don’t last but a few months in the majority of people infected. If true, then no herd immunity. If true, that would be a big story.
Thank you Mish for providing complete numbers. Most of the media don’t understand what the real story is so they mislead the public. (Unfortunately I guess that is not news) I live in Texas. It took me 12 weeks to start to receive pandemic benefits and I have not received any benefits from the first 10 weeks yet. The unemployment office phone line is always busy. The online functions do not function the way their website describes. All of this is a huge mess that will take a long time to straighten out.
Would someone please explain something to me. If we have 32 million unemployment claims, and a workforce of 160 million, how the hell can we have a 11% unemployment rate? Those numbers add up to a 20% unemployment rate all day long…….
when am I gettin the money?? Second stimulus check: 156 economists push for recurring direct payments
Mo money, mo money, mo money…!
Just goes to show that shutting down for fear of a virus is a very effective way to cause mass unemployment. And contrary to what Mish stated in an earlier post, Sweden demonstrated the correct way to respond and achieved herd immunity some time ago, whereas we have yet to get there everywhere though will soon do so. The damage from the shut-downs, though, especially since many of the largest Democrat controlled areas are deliberately prolonging it in order to help win them an election, will last for years.
America – and most Western countries – have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that they are in a decadent phase and will soon self destruct. The only question is if they will fall prey to globalist totalitarians, home-grown anarchists and criminal gangs, or libertarian traditionalists. Remaining as we are – a dysfunctional hodge podge of mutually despising cultural blocs, is no longer a viable option.
Trump showed that America could have become Great Again. 2020 shows that it is determined not to but also not yet ready for a mature process to address long-standing issues and move forward through them. Unless this election can be fashioned into an ipso facto referendum on how to go forward. Highly unlikely given the ubiquitous overreach of a deceptive, hyper-ventilating super childish Press.
There is no scientific evidence that herd immunity exist for covfefe-19
you sound crazy
Laughable.
DJT has shown ZERO leadership re: covid. Rather pathetic railing against science … and governors.
The recent article that WH “strategy” is for people to grow numb to infections / death and just carry on … beyond pale.
RE: “Trump showed that America could have become Great Again”
That has to be one of the silliest statements you’ve ever posted. Are you sure you’re not that Trump sycophant Conrad (Baron) Black who wrote a glowing biography of Trump after he pardoned you while you were serving a sentence for fraud?
And BTW, Sweden has absolutely not reached herd immunity even now, never mind some time ago. In fact, the evidence is piling up that individual immunity is too short-lasting, even if initially present, to result in any kind of collective herd immunity. The way you keep tossing out these patently false statements is not “silly”, it’s downright dishonest.
The true damage is to your brain.
The Trumpster is headed for the dumpster. The Republican Party will throw him under the bus before November.
Immunity seems to last about four months, the same as for Coronaviruses 229e and oc43. If people had Covid in January, and were recovered by the end of February, they became susceptible to catch it again this month. The group of people who were recovered by the end of February is small, so we aren’t seeing a lot of re-infections…yet…but we are are seeing some, and that’s a bad sign. What is especially bad is that the reinfection is worse than the first time. By the first of November, people who recovered by the end of June will be catching it a second time. It looks like it will long, ugly fall.
In fairness, the people who had really had case seem to have antibodies that last longer than those with mild cases, but even those may not last long.
I didn’t read anything about that (reinfection worse the second time), rather the opposite. Do you have a source? That is concerning.
As to several other comments on herd immunity: it only takes 10-20%, not the 70% first promulgated (to make it unreachable no doubt). Sweden is there. Just monitor their death rates…
Sure, here is one source:
“Glatter says he has cared for a “number of patients” who suffer only mild initial infections, get better and actually test negative for the virus before experiencing a recurrence of symptoms. The intensity can be worse the second time, he says. “
My other evidence is anecdotal. I have a friend in New Jersey who is familiar with someone who was reinfected. It was a co-worker of his neighbor. After catching it and having a mild case, and recovering, the man returned to work, and eventually caught it again, and died. Another friend has someone he goes to church with, whose daughter and son-in-law both caught it, had mild cases, and then caught it again. It hit both much harder the second time, and they had to be hospitalized, but now appear on the road to recovery.
“If” it only takes 20%, a possible reason is that apparently there is some cross protection in people who have previously been infected with other coronaviruses. They obviously don’t have antibodies to SARS-COV2, but they do have memory T-cells that recognize some of the proteins that SARS-COV2 shares with 299e, oc43, etc, and that allows the body to mount some defenses. Note that if common cold coronaviruses are common in Scandinavian countries, that might also be part of the reason why so few died in those countries compared to elsewhere.
I wonder if this has something to do with different strains. Some of the early strains in Italy were causing ghastly symptoms with patients’ lungs turning to jelly shortly before death. Scared the hell out of the ICU workers there. But many other strains – such as the ones in California which it looks like were dribbling over in November-December – were far milder. Also, the virus changes nature over time, though usually they get less virulent over time.
And of course it’s also possible that you are talking about two entirely different illnesss. The current CV19 tests are not accurate: people who’ve had colds can test positive, or other forms of corona. The word ‘science’ is reassuringly precise, but the process is messy. Just look at the endless discussions about masks: extremely qualified experts are all over the map with them, sometimes even the same expert entirely changing his tune from one month to the next (like Fauci, but many others).
I very much doubt you are going to get a second wave with the death counts peaking at what it was back in April. That is the projection being sold now in order to get the country locked down again, and finally bury probably 25% or more of all small businesses in the USA, a disaster of truly epic proportions which will do far more damage to peoples’ lives, over time, than the virus. But people terrified of the virus cannot contemplate alternative angles, it seems.
The country is extremely susceptible to brainwashing. So much so, that I personally have lost all faith in its viability as an independent sovereign nation. Unless there is a Yuge game changer in the next few months, I don’t think the country will survive the next election, which is almost certain to be highly contested and cause some form of civil war one way or another no matter what the results are – if indeed they are known before December. The MAGA agenda has been broken by treason and insurrection. I hope the perpetrators find the fruits of their labours of benefit to the entire citizenry, but I fear they have sown the seeds of civic hell and ruined their progeny’s prospects for generations to come.
Different strains is a possibility, though that goes against the theory from Sweden that all Coronaviruses are alike, and if you have immunity to one, you have immunity to all. It’s also possible that these patients never completely recover, and the virus eventually returns.
At this point, there isn’t enough data to know the answer, only to know the questions. How many people are there in the entire world who had Covid in January or early Feburary, and who recovered by the end of February, and who have been re-exposed in July? Not many, so we don’t have a big enough sample. Yet, a large number of people recovered in May-June. By September/October, there will be a large pool of people who have recovered, and for whom it has been over four months since they recovered. At that point we will know the answer.
PPP loans were based on a maximum of 2.5 months of payroll.
Applications were accepted starting in early April.
Many businesses that received the funds have already used them up.
Rough seas ahead, mates.
According to reports, people receiving the 600 a month were spending more than when they were employed.
Just throw those people to the wall.
Absolutely.
The government should not extend benefits.
It cannot keep everyone from financial pain all of the time. Financial pain is what creates efficiency. If no one ever has to bear pain, they will not self correct.
Excuse me jackass? They shut it down and ruined people’s lives they can pay for it and when you see homeless hungry people coming your way you can think about what you just said idiot.
As long as government is imposing the unemployment, they are responsible for compensating for it.
These claimants are a little late in the game for the extra $600 week.
In Califronia all claims are retroactive. I file now and point to first day of joblessness which can be feb or march for sure and I get all the money including the 600 per week retroactively. I assume it is the same in all states. 🙂 or :(?
The $600 is federal money. Not sure that applies. Once it is ended, it may be gone forever.