Economy adds 1.4 million jobs in August, and the unemployment rate fell below 10 percent

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39. Unemployment Crisis Going in Wrong Direction: Week 25 of U.S. Labor Market Collapse

Last edited Sat Sep 19, 2020, 10:58 AM - Edit history (1)

by Wolf Richter • Sep 10, 2020 •

Continued unemployment claims rise for second week, to 29.6 million, worst since Aug 1, meaning 18.4% of labor force is on unemployment insurance. State & federal initial claims jumped to 1.7 million in the week (not seasonally adjusted).

Total continued claims for unemployment insurance (UI) under all state and federal programs rose by 380,000, to 29.6 million people (not seasonally adjusted), the highest since August 1, according to the Department of Labor this morning. This was the second weekly increase in a row, after the 2.2-million jump last week.

These 29.6 million people who continued to claim UI under all programs translate into 18.4% of the civilian labor force of 161 million:



Blue columns – continued claims under state programs: +54k

The number of people who continued claiming UI under state programs rose by 54k to 13.2 million (not seasonally adjusted), the first increase after five decreases in a row. .........(more)

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/09/10/unemployment-crisis-going-in-wrong-direction-week-25-of-u-s-labor-market-collapse/

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Thanks marmar for the post in the Economy Group.

The ultimate source of the numbers: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

Something I've been yammering about for quite some time. It went from 27.0 million to 29.6 million in 2 weeks.

As always, note the discrepancy between 29.6 M continuing claims, and the BLS's Friday (9/4) job report of 13.6 M unemployed, https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214030232#post3 .