Weekly jobless benefit claims data
- Prior was 787K
- Continuing claims 5072K vs 5200K expected
- Prior continuing claims 5219K
- PUA claims 161K vs 308K prior (lowest since the pandemic)
- Total claims 19.176K vs 19.564K prior
- Full report
The reports over the holidays are tough to interpret because of all the closures. There have been some small signs of improvement in the past two weeks but it's tough to tell if that's real or a result of holidays. For instance, unadjusted claims were 922K but were seasonally adjusted lower.
The PUA drop may be due to the runoff in the program. For instance, Ohio reported zero claims in the program compared to 51K the week before.
