Initial claims are back above 1,000,000. Continued claims show improvement but progress is slow.
Initial Claims Rise Back Above 1,000,000
The US Department of Labor reports seasonally-adjusted initial claims rose to 1,106,000, an increase of 135,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 8,000 from 963,000 to 971,000.
The string of 20 straight weeks above the million mark just ended last week but claims are back above that milestone.
Continued Claims in 2020
Continued state unemployment claims showed a bit of further improvement but progress is agonizingly slow with continued claims at 14,844,000.
The BLS reference week for the next jobs report is the week that contains the 13th of the month. That’s the week that determines the official unemployment rate.
We will will see that data a week from today. The previous reference week was 16,951,000.
If trends hold, continued claims for the reference week will be about 14,500,000.
At the current rate of improvement claims will be above 10 million for months.
Four Continued Claim Factors
- Continued claims lag initial claims by a week.
- People can find a job and drop off the unemployment rolls.
- People can expire their benefits and drop off the rolls.
- People can retire and drop off the rolls.
Note: My Initial Claims and Continued Claims charts are Seasonally-Adjusted. The following PUA and Totals are NOT Seasonally-Adjusted.
Primary PUA Claims
Primary PUA covers those who are not eligible to make state claims. People working part-time can also claim PUA.
The report lags initial claims by 2 weeks and continued claims by 1 week.
Primary PUA claims rose for the first time in four weeks by 501,378.
PUA claims are not seasonally adjusted.
All Continued Claims
No Double Counting Just Misleading
All Continued Claims is sum of all the various programs.
There is no double-counting as widely reported.
One either applies at the state level or the Federal Level, not both. And one must first apply at the state level.
There are currently 28,059,349 people collecting pandemic assistance. Confusion stems from the fact that not all of those people are unemployed.
PUA allows part-time workers to apply. They will not show up in the monthly jobs report as unemployed.
There are also some collecting PUA who are genuinely unemployed who simply do not qualify for any state programs.
Number of Unemployed
The number of unemployed is somewhere between 14,844,000 (continued claims) and 28,059,349 (all claims).
My guess is around 20,000,000 but the BLS will report far less due to extremely strict counting guidelines plus admitted errors.
Expired Benefits
It’s important to note that those on PUA who are not working part-time have no money coming in.
Individuals must first apply at the state level. If not covered then they can apply for PUA. Persons who qualify at the state level get state benefits plus PUA. This is part of the double-counting confusion.
Those on PUA but not a state program have no money coming in unless they are working on the side.
Due to Congressional bickering the last PUA check is for the week ending July 25. Today is August 20.
Trump authorized another $400 but with states having to supply $100, so really the authorization is $300.
Authorization is one thing sending out checks is another. This will be the fourth missed check for those receiving PUA, currently over 28 million.
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Point number 4 is particularly ominous.
Why should we even believe these highly questionable figures when we know that the unemployment structure is manipulated … such s waste of time ….
More I travel the 48 the more down and outs I see
Since 2009,no country in the history of mankind has gone so completely to shit in such a short time as the US,talk bout falling far really really fast!
can you explain how you reached this conclusion?? The USA experienced the longest economic expansion in history before the ‘scam’demic hit in Feb 2020 (very convenient timing).
Longest expansion, perhaps, but one that saw 70% of jobs created paying $15/hr or less. That maybe explains why while so many are suffering the stock market is soaring, the more fortunate are bidding up houses and CEOs are still making 8 figure incomes. God bless America!
The way 2020 is going we might as well have Yellowstone erupt and send us the way of the dinosaurs.
Remember the money for the Trump program was taken out of FEMA. We now have the Iowa derecho storm, California wildfires and some tropical disturbances threatening the gulf. That is why the money is in the system. Not his slush fund.
California was mean to him, so he doesn’t have to give them that money.
“Most of my neighbors seem to have more discretionary income than ever.”
…
One of my canaries is a college friend who lives inside the Beltway (has cushy 6 figure job with fedgov). Not one to really talk the economy, but he’s been loving life recently as in … working from home (saving a lot of money by not going out for lunch and such), 401K back to all time high … used the word “apparently” in saying there was apparently a recession going on …
The initial layoffs more or less the low wage workers.
Now? As V taken off the table?
Yes, some are still low wage as PPP dried up, but moving up the ladder … to corporate (well paid + benefits).
With forbearance / moratorium waning … consumption will dampen … of course, credit tightening will be the hammer to the anvil.
Recession going nowhere anytime soon.
Yes, large companies ( my company) have furloughed, offered buyouts, and now they are starting to downsize. It takes awhile to figure out which product lines and people with skills to keep.
Corporate is doing fine unaffected and most are adding jobs not laying people off.
Care to back your claim?
I can back mine.
I walk around my suburban neighborhood and houses are selling in days. Neighbors are installing pools and buying new cars. This massive unemployment event feels so far away. Most of my neighbors seem to have more discretionary income than ever. I’m curious if we have ever had such a recession where so many new people are struggling to make rent while others (even in the same Metro) seem to be getting wealthier?
The real question is, why haven’t we been doing this all along? If a three trillion dollar injection of imaginary money each quarter is what it takes, lets git ‘er done!
When all wealth anyone has obtained for the past 50 years, and is obtaining, stem solely from The Fed and junta crassly robbing others o their behalf, there is simply no way you will not have some struggling and others doing better than ever.
That’s just how theft and redistribution have always worked: The one getting robbed gets poorer, the one being handed the loot, gets richer. How else could it possibly be?
Well, the poor one is freshly out of loot, so something is going to have to change.
Yup.
As long as there is some wealth and income left to steal, The Fed can keep levitating the wealth of it’s favored leeches with stolen funds.
But, as you, and Thatcher back in the day, note: Sooner or later you do run out of other people’s money.
That has bee the case for quite some time now. The way The Fed, and the other financialization/theft sustaining institutions, have been adapting to that reality, is to continuously narrow whom it considers favored. Such that people who used to “make money off their 401K” during the 80s, and “their portfolio” in the 90s and “their home” in the aughts; are now mostly relegated to the “be robbed” side of the ledger as well. Such that the 30% who felt they benefited from the rackets during the the 80s, down to 20% in the 90s, and perhaps 10% in the aughts; are now down to a few percent currently benefiting. Mostly concentrated in welfare centers like DC and NYC; utterly devoid of even a hint of wealth creation, yet still flush with funds looted from everyone else.
While everyone else is just being robbed, in order to sustain the downright childish illusion that modern “finance” is somehow, in any way, meaningfully different from burglary, or other more traditional forms of theft.
The same story played out in Argentina. Where they are now down to about a gated neighborhood of Buenos Aires, as far as the few remaining theft beneficiaries is concerned. With everyone else being robbed, increasingly all the way to outright starvation, in order to sustain those few. The US is still a decade for two behind that, but aside from timing, in any way at all any different.
It’s like someone has given people a credit card to share. Everybody tries to put as much on it as possible, hoping someone will pay it.