Jobless claims: Another 712,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo Finance

Jobless claims: Another 712,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week

Emily McCormick · Reporter
Thu, December 3, 2020, 8:30 AM EST

New weekly jobless claims fell more than expected last week even as states reimposed stay-in-place restrictions throughout November amid a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

The Department of Labor released its weekly report on new jobless claims Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main results from the report, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

-- Initial jobless claims, week ended Nov. 28: 712,000 vs. 775,000 expected and an upwardly revised 787,000 during prior week

-- Continuing claims, week ended Nov. 21: 5.552 million vs. 5.8 million expected and an upwardly revised 6.089 million during prior week

{snip}

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/initial-jobless-claims-week-ended-nov-28-2020-coronavirus-pandemic-164849870.html

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Please see this, which I posted in the Economy group earlier this morning:

Labor Department Published Flawed Estimates of Weekly Jobless Claims, Watchdog Says

https://www.democraticunderground.com/111689900

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. From the source:

https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

News Release

Connect with DOL at
https://blog.dol.gov

TRANSMISSION OF MATERIALS IN THIS RELEASE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL
8:30 A.M. (Eastern) Thursday, December 3, 2020

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending November 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 712,000, a decrease of 75,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 9,000 from 778,000 to 787,000. The 4-week moving average was 739,500, a decrease of 11,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 2,250 from 748,500 to 750,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8 percent for the week ending November 21, a decrease of 0.4 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate. The previous week's rate was revised up by 0.1 from 4.1 to 4.2 percent. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending November 21 was 5,520,000, a decrease of 569,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 18,000 from 6,071,000 to 6,089,000. The 4-week moving average was 6,194,250, a decrease of 425,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 4,500 from 6,615,250 to 6,619,750.

{snip}

UNADJUSTED DATA

{snip. Emphasis mine}

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending November 14 was 20,163,477, a decrease of 349,633 from the previous week. There were 1,573,485 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019.

{snip the rest of the twelve-page news release, until the end}

Weekly Claims Archives
Weekly Claims Data

U.S. Department of Labor news materials are accessible at http://www.dol.gov. The Department's Reasonable Accommodation Resource Center converts Departmental information and documents into alternative formats, which include Braille and large print. For alternative format requests, please contact the Department at [phone] (voice) or [phone] (federal relay).

U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
Washington, D.C. 20210
Release Number: USDL 20-2198-NAT

Program Contacts:
Thomas Stengle: [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Makes sense to me

Two ideas here:

My local national and regional supers are not moving merchandise. I saw closeouts - 40-50% off - beef, chicken, fish, pork yesterday. Even in discount stores. And Goya has made it to the discount store shelves, and it's all untouched there too.

Also this morning, Kroger (KR) reports higher profits but missing on sales! Kroger! So people are pulling back spending, they're hunkering down, and let's face the sad, unnecessary fact that many households are spending less because they're shrinking.

Full scale economic contraction cannot be ruled out no matter how much the Fed stims, Powell lectures, and Treasury loans to businesses. We are in for a cleansing and we won't like it.