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Initial jobless claims remain elevated at 860,000

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The pace of firings in the U.S. economy remains well above anything observed during the Great Financial Crisis as 860,000 workers filed for first-time jobless claims for the week ending Sept. 12, a reflection of the deep scarring in the domestic labor market and economy.

An additional 658,737 filed for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, bringing the total filing for public assistance to 1,518,737 for the week, according to Labor Department data released on Thursday.

The report comes as the number of people seeking unemployment insurance continues to mount. Since mid-March, there have been 61 million filings for first-time jobless claims. For the week ending Sept. 5, there were 12.6 million people filing for continuing claims, which implies an 8.6% unemployment rate. And through the week ending Aug. 29, there were nearly 29.8 million people on some form of unemployment insurance.

While the number of people filing for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance declined by 209,577 as states continued to work through backlogs, the stratospheric number of individuals exhausting their 26 weeks of unemployment and moving on to the PUA rolls demands attention.

Data tends to reflect economic conditions with a lag. Firms that face insufficient demand are most likely beginning to let employees go, and we expect that to accelerate once protections for workers at firms that took Paycheck Protection Program loans expire on Sept. 30.

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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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