Stuck

New weekly California claims for unemployment insurance benefits have been stuck in the 60,000-to-80,000 range when "normal" would be something like 40,000. Thus, by this measure, the state's economy is not "roaring back," as the governor liked to put it a few months ago. As noted in a prior post, we seem likely to be heading for another year in which the budget and the underlying economy seem divorced. The governor is signaling a Good Times/election year budget - made possible by still large reserves - even if the times are not so good.*

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

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2021/10/just-reminder-about-surplus.html.