Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Increase to 429,000
Just a quick note on today's release of data on new claims for unemployment insurance. The news is not good, claims remain elevated:
In the week ending June 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 429,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 420,000. The 4-week moving average was 426,250, unchanged from the previous week's revised average of 426,250.Here's a graph from Calculated Risk showing the four-week moving average of weekly claims for the last 40 years:
As he notes, "This is the 11th straight week with initial claims above 400,000, and the 4-week average is at about the same the level as in January." When claims are above 400,000, approximately, labor markets are generally losing rather than gaining jobs. It's not yet morning in America.
