For the third time since start of the recession, the number of new claims for unemployment for the week ending 9/5/20 was below the 1,000,000 mark. For contrast, before the government induced shutdown of the economy, new claims averaged about 220,000 per week.
On the other hand, the number of new claims was flat for the week – the damage from the shutdown in terms of new claims did not go down.
As I continue to sort out for myself what this means, will keep listing the stats I’m tracking.
The number of new claims for unemployment and number drawing unemployment is provided by Department of Labor. I calculated the net change, which I assume represents the number of new jobs, although could also be that people dropping out of the job market could wash into that number:
| new claim | new jobs | draw u/e | |
| 20.29 | |||
| 6/13/2020 | 1.54 | 2.60 | 19.23 |
| 6/20/2020 | 1.48 | 1.95 | 18.76 |
| 6/27/2020 | 1.41 | 2.41 | 17.76 |
| 7/4/2020 | 1.31 | 1.77 | 17.30 |
| 7/11/2020 | 1.31 | 2.46 | 16.15 |
| 7/18/2020 | 1.42 | 0.62 | 16.95 |
| 7/25/2020 | 1.44 | 2.30 | 16.09 |
| 8/1/2020 | 1.19 | 1.80 | 15.48 |
| 8/8/2020 | 0.97 | 1.69 | 14.76 |
| 8/15/2020 | 1.10 | 1.37 | 14.49 |
| 8/22/2020 | 1.01 | 2.21 | 13.29 |
| 8/29/2020 | 0.88 | 0.79 | 13.39 |
| 9/5/2020 | 0.88 | ||
| 9/12/2020 | |||
| 9/19/2020 | (0.88) | ||
| — | — | ||
| total | 15.07 | 21.97 | |
| net new jobs | 37.04 |
Data source
Weekly press release from the Department of labor: Unemployment insurance weekly claims. At the end of the report you can find several months’ worth of previous weekly data.
Seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate
The number of people drawing unemployment is dropping each week due to the number of new jobs. The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate is slowly dropping:
| date | revised | prelim |
| 6/20/2020 | 12.9% | 13.2% |
| 7/27/2020 | 12.2% | 12.4% |
| 7/4/2020 | 11.8% | 11.9% |
| 7/11/2020 | 11.1% | 11.1% |
| 7/18/2020 | 11.6% | |
| 7/25/2020 | 11.0% | |
| 8/1/2020 | 10.6% | |
| 8/8/2020 | 10.1% | |
| 8/15/2020 | 9.9% | |
| 8/22/2020 | 9.1% | |
| 8/29/2020 | 9.2% |
Summary of new claims and running total
Below is my running tally of the new unemployment claims. Table shows weekly claims in millions and as a percentage of February civilian labor force.
| new claims | % of Feb | |
| 2/1 to 3/14 ave. | 0.22 | |
| —— | —- | |
| 3/21/2020 | 3.31 | 2.01% |
| 3/28/2020 | 6.87 | 4.18% |
| 4/4/2020 | 6.62 | 4.02% |
| 4/11/2020 | 5.24 | 3.18% |
| 4/18/2020 | 4.44 | 2.70% |
| 4/25/2020 | 3.84 | 2.33% |
| 5/2/2020 | 3.17 | 1.93% |
| 5/9/2020 | 2.69 | 1.63% |
| 5/16/2020 | 2.45 | 1.49% |
| 5/23/2020 | 2.12 | 1.29% |
| 5/30/2020 | 1.88 | 1.14% |
| 6/6/2020 | 1.57 | 0.95% |
| 6/13/2020 | 1.54 | 0.94% |
| 6/20/2020 | 1.48 | 0.90% |
| 6/27/2020 | 1.41 | 0.86% |
| 7/4/2020 | 1.31 | 0.80% |
| 7/11/2020 | 1.30 | 0.79% |
| 7/18/2020 | 1.42 | 0.86% |
| 7/25/2020 | 1.44 | 0.87% |
| 8/1/2020 | 1.19 | 0.72% |
| 8/8/20 | 0.97 | 0.59% |
| 8/15/20 | 1.10 | 0.67% |
| 8/22/20 | 1.01 | 0.61% |
| 8/29/20 | 0.88 | 0.54% |
| 9/5/20 | 0.88 | 0.54% |
| —- | —- | |
| shutdown subtotal | 60.14 | 32.0% |
| 2/20 civilian labor | 164.5 |