Reopening Appears in Continuing Claims

Another 2.1 million filings for unemployment today. This is still 3 times more than any time before the COVID recession. However, the more interesting number is continuing claims.

Continuing Claims for 2020

You can see for the first time since the start of the recession claims fell by about 3 million. Since no one has run out of unemployment benefits yet, these are people going back to work.

Note this still gives the US 21 million people getting unemployment. The prior highest total was about 6.5 million during the financial crisis, so this is still a huge number.

This will be a number to watch going forward for the recovery.

Driving Season

Memorial Day Weekend marks the beginning of the summer driving season. This year drivers – if they have somewhere to go – will have the cheapest gas prices in 5 years.

Oil, Gas, and CA Gas prices over time

Since oil prices have collapsed, gas prices have followed suit.

As has been the case for the last 5 years, California motorists will pay about $0.80 – $1.00 more per gallon than other consumers in the US. This is likely due to California’s Carbon policies as well as the fact California has a special blend of gasoline for smog that can only be produced by California refineries.

It will be interesting to see if people drive more this summer because of the concerns about flying or if the fact that very few things are open and the economic concerns stop them.