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Friday, July 23, 2021

Not Roaring

As blog readers will know, we have been tracking new weekly claims for unemployment insurance as an indicator of labor market and general economic conditions in California. We now have data through the week ending July 17th and - as been the case for several weeks - at least by this index, we are not "roaring back," the governor's favorite description of the California economy.

Actually, he seemed to drop that characterization in his news conferences this week. The conferences always start with a screen indicating you should wait for the event to begin. But there was a subtle shift from the roaring back theme to a more modest "comeback plan." You can see the shift on the image below:

As we have also noted, the state budget - for reasons we have discussed - is somewhat detached from the general economy. Lots of spending and cash on hand. Given the continued economic and political uncertainties of our era, you can find plenty to worry about in the years to come.

But if all you want to do is find the latest data on weekly unemployment claims, you can always go to:

https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

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