This morning’s jobless claims report shows that the trend of “less worse” news has at least temporarily ended, at a level of about 150,000 higher than the worst weekly levels of the Great Recession.
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose for the second week in a row, by 20,140 to 857,148. After seasonal adjustment (which is far less important than usual at this time), claims were unchanged at 884,000, tied for their “best” reading since the pandemic began. The 4-week moving average declined by 21,750 to a new pandemic low of 970,750:
Continuing claims, on both an unadjusted and seasonally adjusted basis rose from their pandemic lows of last week, by 54,472 to 13,197,059, and by 93,000 to 13,385,000 respectively:
It is tough to improve when I still have to wear a mask everywhere.
When I don’t feel safe going to a restaurant.
When I am not going to get on airplane for 8+ months.
It deaths/hospitalization congealed at this level by October, with no new pips, I see restrictions being lifted by the end of the year.
This was expected. Donald Trump is a Republican, and Republicans trash the economy. If COVID hadn’t come along, we’d still have a crappy economy, though probably not quite as bad. The thing is that a bad economy is Republican policy, What did we expect?
If restrictions are lifted in October, there will be a huge surge in new cases and deaths by the end of the year. Anyone who believes otherwise hasn’t been paying attention.
Joel:
We will hit 200,000 deaths by Wednesday having 198,189 as of this morning. COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC and a projection of 255,000 by election time.