Jobless Claims Slightly Beat Forecast, Continue to Trend Down for 10th Straight Week
Washington, D.C. (PPD) — The U.S. Labor Department (DOL) reported initial jobless claims came in slightly less than expected at 1,542,000 for the week ending June 6, due to the mitigation efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). That’s a decrease for the tenth straight week and of 355,000 from the previous week’s upwardly (+20,000) revised 1,897,000.
Forecasts ranged from a low of 1,100,000 to a high of 1,750,000. The consensus forecast was 1,565,000. The 4-week moving average fell to 2,002,000, a decline of 286,250 from the previous week’s upwardly revised (+4,250) average of 2,288,250.
Roughly 45 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits as a result of the efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). However, millions now appear to have returned to work given lagging data.
Lagging Jobless Claims Data
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate fell 0.2% to 14.4% for the week ending May 30. The previous week’s rate was revised down by 0.2% from 14.8% to 14.6%.
The insured unemployment rate hit the first high of the current crisis at 8.2% for the week ending April 4. The all-time high prior to that was 7.0%, recorded in May of 1975. On April 11, it rose to 11.0% and 12.4% on April 25.
Under the Trump Administration, this rate had fallen to an all-time low 1.1% and remained at 1.2% just weeks ago, as recently as March 14. But that was before coronavirus (COVID-19) mitigation efforts.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 30 was 20,929,000, a decrease of 339,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 219,000 from 21,487,000 to 21,268,000.
The 4-week moving average was 21,987,500, a decrease of 404,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 54,000 from 22,446,250 to 22,392,250.
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending May 23 was 29,505,027, down a total 662,143 from the previous week. There were 1,545,606 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019.
During the week ending May 23, Extended Benefits were available in the following 30 states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending May 23 were in Maine (26.9), Nevada (24.3), Michigan (21.7), Hawaii (20.1), Puerto Rico (19.0), New York (18.7), Pennsylvania (17.5), Georgia (17.2), Massachusetts (16.8), and Rhode Island (16.6).
As People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) reported, two of three metro divisions that suffered the largest over-the-year percentage declines in employment for April during the coronavirus (COVID-19) shutdown, were in Michigan.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 30 were in Florida (+32,296), California (+25,372), Oklahoma (+16,662), and Mississippi (+158), while the largest decreases were in New York (-107,161), Michigan
(-25,284), Texas (-21,040), Pennsylvania (-18,050), and Washington (-17,507).
