UI claims fell to just over 1 million (714K UI initial claims NSA + 289K PUA claims) last wk due to the holiday wk.

The slowdown is likely due to a Thanksgiving lull though it was still not enough to drive claims below the 1M mark; 37th straight wk above 1M.

#joblessclaims 1/

SA initial claims fell substantially from 787K to 712K, despite the seasonal adjustment shifting to a -2K effect from -49K in the wk prior, indicating claims fell way more than the SA expected.

Hard to say how accurate the SA is during a pandemic though.

#joblessclaims 2/

Continuing claims dropped pretty significantly at the fastest pace we've seen in over a month. Unclear if that re-acceleration holds or if it represents some other quirk e.g. biweekly claim cycles in CA/TX, spike in benefit exhaustion, holiday seasonality, etc.

#joblessclaims 3/

Reminder: many of those continuing claims are exhausting benefits and/or moving into PEUC/EB (now 5.3M claimants). Unfortunately those datasets are delayed even more than usual claims data so will be a few wks before we get a fuller picture.

#joblessclaims 4/

Reminder #2: UI claims data gets murky over the winter. The SA will expect a big winter spike in claims, but pandemic-induced layoffs may be confused for usual seasonal layoffs if the SA adjusts them away.

This muddying of the waters is ill-timed given...

#joblessclaims 5/

Congress is currently negotiating addtl relief. "Improving" claims data could weaken the case for relief even if it's a statistical artifact. Relief is critical given worsening pandemic + PEUC/PUA are expiring EOY (est. 12 million could lose benefits!)

#joblessclaims 6/6