Jobless Claims Slightly Miss Forecast, Continue to Trend Down for 11th Straight Week
Washington, D.C. (PPD) — The U.S. Labor Department (DOL) reported initial jobless claims came in more than expected at 1,501,000 for the week ending June 13, due to the mitigation efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). That’s a decrease for the eleventh straight week and of 58,000 from the previous week’s upwardly (+24,000) 1,566,000.
Forecasts ranged from a low of 1,100,000 to a high of 1,628,000. The consensus forecast was 1,220,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,773,500, a decline of 234,500 from the previous week’s upwardly revised average at 2,008,000.
Roughly 47 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 was 14.1% for the week ending June 6, unchanged as the previous week was revised down by 0.3 from 14.4 to 14.1%.
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 June 6 was 20,544,000, a decrease of 62,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 323,000 from 20,929,000 to 20,606,000.
The 4-week moving average was 20,814,750, a decrease of 1,092,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 80,750 from 21,987,500 to 21,906,750.
During the week ending May 30, Extended Benefits were available in the following 34 states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, 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, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending May 30 were in Nevada (24.2), Puerto Rico (21.1), Hawaii (20.2), New York (18.0), Michigan (17.6), Connecticut (16.3), California (16.2), Rhode Island (16.2), Louisiana (16.1), and Massachusetts (16.1).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending June 6 were in California (+27,202), Massachusetts (+17,512), Oklahoma (+17,149), New York (+11,873), and Maryland (+9,718), while the largest decreases were in Florida (-95,546), Texas (-17,001), Georgia (-13,909), Michigan (-11,454), and Maine (-8,034).
