New Claims: Trying to Tell Right from Wrong

The weekly new claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended January 30 are continuing to move in the right direction, i.e., down, for the U.S. as a whole. California data suggest a problem, not with the direction of the economy, but with the unemployment benefit system data for the state. There was a dramatic drop in claims in the prior week and then a bounce back - which suggests some problem in claim processing in the prior week. ??? Possibly, claims agents were pulled out of regular duties because of the ongoing scandals in the separate program for "gig" workers. In any event, if you ignore the prior week, the trend is down for the state.

As usual, the latest weekly claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.