What do we know about California from new claims data?

Every Thursday, we have been tracking new claims for unemployment insurance at the state and national level for clues as to how the economy (of both) is going. But although you may see some headlines about new claims today, California has closed the window for new claims for two weeks in order to catch up with the backlog of unprocessed claims from the past. As a result, the state just lists the prior week's total. Since California is a big piece of the workforce, the US figures are distorted by the freeze.

In effect, to answer the headline of this posting, we know nothing. For info on the California freeze, see: https://www.edd.ca.gov/About_EDD/pdf/news-20-49.pdf