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Elevated first-time and continuing jobless claims show mounting stress in the labor market

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Stress in the domestic labor market continued to intensify as 2.98 million individuals filed first-time jobless claims for the week ending May 9, bringing the total to 36 million during the coronavirus pandemic. Those filing continuing claims for the week ending May 2 jumped to 22.83 million, according to figures released by the Labor Department on Thursday.

About the best that can be said is that jobless claims continue to ease, albeit at an elevated rate. The data clearly demands a sustained and increased policy response to address what is going to be mass unemployment for some time.

The sheer size of those filing continuing claims is greater than the population of Florida.

The insured unemployment rate implied by the continuing claims is 15.7%, and the near real-time unemployment rate implied by the pace of filings is 27.7%.

The May unemployment rate that will be reported during the first week of June will most likely fall somewhere between the two, up from the 14.7% reported in April, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted would be closer to 20% if it could accurately capture all those not working.

To put this in perspective, the sheer size of those filing continuing claims is greater than the entire population of Florida, which given the problems in that state processing first-time claims is more than a little ironic. The number of those filing first-time claims would be equal to the populations of Texas and Maryland combined.

The base case here is that whether one uses Florida or Texas as the baseline, removing those states’ entire populations from contributing to the economy tends to underscore the bleak economic outlook put forward by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Moreover, this data tends to put some data around Powell’s assertion that 40% of households with incomes of less than $40,000 lost a job over the past two months.

This will require sustained fiscal aid, and eventually, once the economy begins to recover, a massive fiscal stimulus program to avoid a general economic depression. Fed liquidity commitments alone cannot avoid that general economic condition.

For more information on how the coronavirus is affecting midsize businesses, please visit the RSM Coronavirus Resource Center.

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About Joseph Brusuelas

@JoeBrusuelas

Joe Brusuelas, “chief economist to the middle market,” is the preeminent voice championing issues and policies facing midsize companies in the United States and around the world. An award-winning economist, Brusuelas has more than 20 years’ experience analyzing U.S. monetary policy, labor markets, fiscal policy, international finance, economic indicators and the condition of the U.S. consumer.

A member of the Wall Street Journal’s forecasting panel and the UCLA Anderson School of Management's Board of Directors, Brusuelas regularly briefs members of Congress and other senior officials regarding the impacts of federal policy on the middle market and the factors by which middle market executives make business decisions. He also frequently offers his insights on the U.S., Canadian and global economies in the financial media. In 2020, he was named one of the 100 most influential economists by Richtopia. In December 2023, Brusuelas and the economics team were recognized on Bloomberg's list of Best Bond Forecasters after correctly predicting where the benchmark Treasury would end the year.

Before joining RSM in 2014, Brusuelas spent four years as a senior economist at Bloomberg L.P. and the Bloomberg Briefs newsletter group, where he co-founded the award-winning Bloomberg Economic Brief. Earlier in his career, he was a director at Moody's Analytics covering the U.S. and global economies for the Dismal Scientist website. He also served as chief economist at Merk Investments L.L.C. and chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal.

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