unemployment

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.

By Christopher Schwarz, ago

Unemployment Rate: 18.9%

The April jobs report say the unemployment rate is 14.7%. It’s the highest since the great depression. The Actual unemployment rate is 18.9%. (It’s actually way higher now.)

Why the difference? This graph explains the story.

Participation and Employment Levels of the Working Age (16-65) Population

We actually lost 25 million jobs last month. The reason the unemployment rate isn’t higher is because 8 million people dropped out of the labor force.

If we kept those people in the labor force, the unemployment rate would be 18.9%. Even with the 14.7% number, that’s the highest unemployment since the Great Depression.

Reported Unemployment Rate

Note that the jobs report is based on data halfway through the month. Since this report, we’ve lose another 12 million jobs, so the actual unemployment rate is closing in on 25% now.

By Christopher Schwarz, ago