The U.S. Labor Department announced Thursday that 1.5 million American workers filed new unemployment claims last week, marking 27 consecutive weeks above a million ― a shocking streak. Before this crisis, there had never been more than a million new unemployment claims in a single week, according to seasonally adjusted Labor Department data going back to 1967. There are more than 26 million “continued claims” for unemployment benefits, according to Thursday’s report from the department’s Employment and Training Administration. The department characterizes continued claims as “persons claiming benefits,” but the number reflects claims, not actual people. Stettner said that the new initial unemployment claims may not be a great proxy for layoffs in the sense that a million-plus people are not suddenly getting axed out of nowhere.

Source: Huffington Post September 24, 2020 17:03 UTC