Claims Relatively Low, Absolutely Ridiculously High

New Jobless claims were “only” 3.17 million today. That sounds great because it’s half the number 5 weeks ago. Of course, it’s **5** times the maximum number before this recession started.

In total now, there have been 33 million claims in 7 weeks. It took almost 75 weeks – 10 times longer – to hit the number of claims during the last two recessions.

The question is now how long until claims slow down to “normal” levels and employment begins to increase again.