Initial Jobless Claims Re-Accelerated Last Week, Pandemic Claims Continue To Soar

‘Only’ 742,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment claims last week – breaking a 4-week streak of drops as perhaps the second-wave lockdown impacts are starting to be evident…

Source: Bloomberg

Louisiana saw the biggest surge in jobless claims while Illinois and Florida saw the biggest drops…

Continuing claims continued their (now 8 week) streak of reductions, falling to 6.372mm from 6.801mm last week. However, as the chart below shows, as Americans fall off those ‘standard’ claims rolls, they are transitioning to the Pandemic Emergency Claims rolls…

Source: Bloomberg

Overall, the aggregate number of Americans on unemployment claims remains above 20 million…

Source: Bloomberg

And given the current lockdowns, this is about to get worse.