Jobless Claims: Nearly 1.5 million again

June 25, 2020
Bottom Line: Claims were higher than expected for the third week in a row, barely falling below 1.5 million, as many states continued to process a backlog of claims. California saw an unusually large jump in claims in the week. Non-seasonally adjusted claims (1.46 million last week) have been running about 100k more than our Nowcasting models based on Google Trends data, likely confirming the backlog. This week looks to be running in-line with last week. Jobless Claims FELL by 60k during the week ended June 20th to 1480k, compared with market expectations for a drop to 1320k. The 4-week average FELL by 160.8k to 1621k and the 13-week average FELL by 140.5k to 3380k. Continuing Claims FELL by 767k during the week ended June 13th to 19,522k, after the prior week was revised moderately higher from 11,976k to 20,289k.The 4-week average FELL by 330k to 20,421k. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, Continuing Claims FELL by 501k to 17,921k during the week ended June 6th. The Insured Jobless Rate FELL by 0.5% to 13.4% during the week ended June 13th. The insured jobless rate only reflects the number of people collecting regular state unemployment insurance.