Initial Jobless Claims Rise For 2nd Week In A Row, Pandemic Claims Soar

For the second week in a row, the number of Americans filing for first time unemployment claims has risen (printing at 778k vs 730k exp and 742k prior)…

Source: Bloomberg

Illinois, Michigan, Washington, and California (all Democrat-run) were the states that suffered the largest surge in initial claims while Louisiana and Massachusetts saw the biggest drop in claims…

But as continuing claims fall – but were worse than expected – the Pandemic Emergency Claims are soaring as Americans drop off the standard unemployment benefits…

Source: Bloomberg

Worse still, the aggregate number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits rose over 130k last week to well above 20 million. This is the first increase since Sept 11th…

And this is before the more wide-spread lockdowns have hit.