1.5 Million Jobless Claims Filed Last Week

TPM Article Topics
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The Department of Labor reported on Thursday morning that 1,542,000 unemployment claims were filed in the week ending on June 6.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1313992
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Serious question: how bad is this number? And please, I’m not much of an economist, so do hope for some legit commentary to help my fecklessness.

Thanks.

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Yes, how much of a difference between this weeks number and the average.

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When will the revised numbers be released?

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It’s an improvement over the past month, hard to say if it’s “bad” or not. For one thing, claims should be dropping by this point as most companies would have already laid off their staff, and should be looking at re-hiring since we have begun the “reopening.” The fact that it didn’t drop farther makes me wonder why so many people are still just now hitting the unemployment line.

Bottom line is we just don’t know. Cases are rising again in many states. As I’ve said before, you can’t simply will an economy to restart. Lots of people going out again, but what percent aren’t? If the “second wave” is as bad as it could be, we’re right back where we were in March. I don’t expect to see shutdowns in the manner we had before, but it will come down to how many people will essentially self-isolate, and that might be a considerable percentage.

Stock market exuberance is completely unhinged from reality as pointed out by many people with more expertise than me (though the last 3 days suggest reality might be catching hold again).

Personally, my company has re-opened and we are keeping all our employees on payroll because we got a PPP loan and we need to in order to qualify for forgiveness. But our business level is not pre-pandemic, and come July we may have to cut our staff. Those won’t be “temporary” layoffs. We have a loooooong slog to make it though for the rest of the year. FED says unemployment will be back below 10% by December, I’ll believe it when I see it. Way to many unknowns and variables.

Long answer, sorry. How bad is it? It’s not great in my opinion. Lower yes, but we’re still adding. So I personally don’t see it as a great number.

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The June jobs report was a example of when your model that deals with incomplete data is thrust into a regime where it is no longer valid…

This UI claims report is simply more evidence of that. I expect massive revisions to the June numbers when the July report comes out (first friday of the month, but will be the thursday the 2nd as the 3rd is a holiday)…

I will be shocked at any number less than 17.5% for U3 and 25% for U6…

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This remains a terrible number. From June 2019 thru March of this year, weekly unemployment claims ranged between 208,000 and 282,000 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Starting in April, claims in the millions began to be made.

We shouldn’t normalize a number like 1.5 million as though that’s fine, since it improved over last week’s more than two million claims. These numbers are unprecedented, haven’t been seen since the Reagan recession and, indeed, since the Great Depression.

The coverage is odd, almost congratulatory—the weekly claims numbers are going down! It would be odd if they weren’t—with more than 40 million claims in place before this week’s report, most of the people most at risk had already filed their claims starting in April.

We all need some good news. But, while thankful that the number of weekly claims are declining, we should keep in mind the terrible reality that some 44 million Americans have lost their jobs.

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Good info. Run that graph out 25 years and the Great Recession looks like a bump, this - another Trumpie great big wall. That the fed says over 9% by end of year means A LOT of the lost jobs are gone. Celebrate? Another trump delusion in the making.

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Good answer. How many businesses will never reopen and not be replaced? How many will permanently be reduced in size? How will healthcare - a big part of GPA - recover? And how long before “essential” workers burn out. Talking to local UPS driver who’s hammered by 72 hour weeks - and hit summer on its way. He’s making lots of overtime, but to what end? Good luck keeping your business going. Know how it feels.

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The media need to stop pretending those May employment numbers were real. They weren’t. We lost 6.5 million jobs last month, not gained 2.5 million. Pretending otherwise is completely insane.

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Is this based on the fixes that have not been made since March for PPP, gig workers, people not looking, etc.?

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Replying to myself here. Should have added that prior to the Covid-19 onslaught, the record number of unemployment claims was about 690,000 (don’t hold me to it, but believe those records date back to around 1948). So, last week’s claims amounted to about 4 times the prior record and this week’s claims amount to close to 3 times the prior record.

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All good questions. I know that my daughter is making less than half of what she was prior to the shutdowns. Not just because of reduced hours but the hourly wage was cut by a third. Nice being in a “right to work” slave state. The feeling was take it or quit, we don’t give a shit.

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Virus and unemployment figures are not going in the right direction. You’d never know it from the way Javanka is positioning Trump’s response. Are they going to have another “Mission Accomplished” photo opp over at St. John’s Church?

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Thank you, I appreciate the thoughtful reply.

MB

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Thanks for the reality check. Just another example of how far down Trump has moved our floor. Basically - if we’re not in a Mad Max-Thunderdome-post-apocalypse - we should apparently be grateful.

Regards,
MB

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Stocks are stable so 1.5 million newly unemployed is treated like ‘meh’. Mind you that number would have been inconceivable during the great recession in '08/'09. But hey, rich folks are still making money at the tables, so who cares? Certainly not anyone in power. R’s pretend everything is fine and D’s position themselves for political gain. Meanwhile, it’ll be late 2022 and 9%+ unemployment will just be treated like it’s perfectly normal and the new measure for ‘full employment’. That is, assuming the market is still stable. If it dips, we’ll get a little bit of money that slips out of Wall Street’s hands accidentally as they bail out investors.

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Best wishes to you. Hope your job survives.

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Good point, context is difficult to come by in current events reporting. Giving relative numbers dating back to last year puts it in perspective.

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The irony of this is, if the books were cooked to put a positive spin on this to appease Orange Voldemort, they are just pushing the reality check back a month or so. Be honest now and you can begin to claim the worst is behind us in August. Lie about it now, so June/July look worse than May, and you have to keep spinning/lying to try and explain away why things appear to have gotten worse.

Many know the reality anyway. But for O.V., this just makes it harder for him coming down the home stretch to the election. So… I guess that’s a good thing!

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