Unemployment claims over 1 million for second week in a row

Unemployment claims are over a million for the second week in a row after they fell below a million three weeks ago:

CNBC – The number of Americans who filed for unemployment benefits for the first time came in above 1 million for the 22nd time in 23 weeks as the economy struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Initial U.S. jobless claims totaled just over 1 million for the week ending Aug. 22, down from 1.104 million in the previous week. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected initial jobless claims expected claims to come in right at 1 million.

It was the second-consecutive week that new claims was above 1 million.

“Continuing claims continue to drop, but still indicate a highly stressed labor market,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Virginia. “Even a 1 million person drop in the total number unemployed isn’t enough — there is a lot of work to be done because 14 million people are still receiving UI assistance of some kind.”

Continuing claims also fell this week:

Continuing claims — which account for those receiving unemployment benefits for at least two straight weeks — fell by 223,000 to 14.535 million for the week ending Aug. 15. Data on continuing claims is delayed by one week.

New Jersey and Florida saw the highest increases of initial claims for the week ending Aug. 15, as they rose by more than 11,000 in both states. Initial claims in New Yor and Texas jumped by more than 9,000 in each state. Data at the state and territory level is delayed by one week.

I checked last week’s report and continuing claims have slowed in their decline. Last week they feel by 636,000 and this week less than half of that at 223,000.

The good news is that the overall claims are still falling. But clearly people are still losing their jobs at a very high rate as states keep their businesses at half occupancy in phase two. My state will be in phase two until the second week in September, unless the governor decides to keep us in phase two even longer.


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