Economic Stalling

We have been tracking new weekly claims for unemployment insurance as a labor market indicator of the state of the economy. For the week ending August 15th, new claims on a seasonally-adjusted basis were 1.1 million, a jump from last week. Without adjustment, there was also a small jump.

California continued to account for a disproportionate one-fifth share of those collecting unemployment benefits.

The latest weekly claims release is (always) at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.