<story><title>Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]</title><url>https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>stupandaus</author><text>Building on my analysis from last week:&lt;p&gt;1. This week&amp;#x27;s 6.6M new jobless claims represents ~4% of the estimated ~160-165M US Workforce.&lt;p&gt;2. This is incremental to the 3.3M new jobless claims filed week ending 3&amp;#x2F;21, totaling ~10M total jobless claims in the past 2 weeks.&lt;p&gt;3. The US unemployment rate was ~3.5% as of EOM February [1], so cumulatively that means we&amp;#x27;ve hit ~10% unemployment as of EOW 3&amp;#x2F;28 (~10M incremental jobless claims = ~6%). That number is likely low and continuing to increase, as new jobless claims do not account for gig workers and many state unemployment sites have been inundated by these claims resulting in site crashes and people unable to file claims. In addition, layoffs have almost certainly continued between 3&amp;#x2F;28 and today.&lt;p&gt;4. The consensus estimate for this week&amp;#x27;s jobless claims was ~3.76M jobless claims, and the 6.6M actual claims blow the consensus estimate out of the water. That said, some analysts such as Goldman Sachs had estimated ~5.5M joblesss claims. Goldman Sachs estimates that unemployment will peak at ~15%. [2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;data.bls.gov&amp;#x2F;timeseries&amp;#x2F;LNS14000000&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;data.bls.gov&amp;#x2F;timeseries&amp;#x2F;LNS14000000&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnbc.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-update-goldman-sees-15percent-jobless-rate-followed-by-record-rebound.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnbc.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;31&amp;#x2F;coronavirus-update-goldman-s...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]</title><url>https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>Unemployment benefits have been significantly expanded under the Coronavirus aid bill. The benefit amounts will sound small if you&amp;#x27;re living in an expensive city like SF or Seattle, but $600&amp;#x2F;week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance means that unemployment benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K&amp;#x2F;year right now. That goes a long way in most parts of the country, especially when you&amp;#x27;re stuck at home. Of course companies are going to opt to shift people to unemployment benefits while they&amp;#x27;re forced into downtime.&lt;p&gt;In some situations, people can actually earn &lt;i&gt;more&lt;/i&gt; from unemployment benefits by being laid off due to some hasty oversights in the aid package (Reference: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnbc.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;27&amp;#x2F;how-unemployed-workers-could-get-more-than-100percent-of-their-paycheck.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cnbc.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;27&amp;#x2F;how-unemployed-workers-could...&lt;/a&gt; ). This doesn&amp;#x27;t account for lost benefits or the risk involved in losing a job, but it could disincentivize people returning to work if it means their income will go down.&lt;p&gt;Of the many people I know who have been “laid off”, all of them have been told they’ll be first in line to be re-hired the moment quarantine ends.&lt;p&gt;If a business can’t make money, it makes more sense for them to let employees collect unemployment during the downtime than to overextend the business’s balance sheet. During normal times, this is a common tactic for seasonal businesses. I have friends in seasonal tourism industries who received training on applying for unemployment benefits during their annual off-season layoffs each year. They even have an explicit system for tracking seniority in the re-hires.&lt;p&gt;Of course, the longer this quarantine lasts, the more likely their businesses are to disappear before they can re-open. Unfortunately we won’t know this number for many months. For now, the initial unemployment claims number can&amp;#x27;t discriminate between jobs that have been temporarily paused and jobs that have been eliminated.</text></comment>