Lowest new jobless claims in over half a century The first two of four data releases this morning were corporate profits for Q3 and jobless claims for last week.Corporate profits, a long leading indicator, increased slightly in Q3 over Q2, by 1.9% or 4.2% depending on whether you include various inventory adjustments. Deflated by unit labor costs, they either increased by 0.3% or decreased by -0.1%. While they haven’t decreased significantly in any accounting, the big post-lockdown and stimulus-fueled pandemic surge is over. Initial claims declined a huge -71,000 this week to 199,000, its lowest reading since 1969 when the US population was half of what it is now! The 4-week average declined -21,000 to 252,250, the lowest since 1973 except for
Topics:
NewDealdemocrat considers the following as important: lowest jobless claims, US EConomics
This could be interesting, too:
NewDealdemocrat writes JOLTS revisions from Yesterday’s Report
Bill Haskell writes The North American Automobile Industry Waits for Trump and the Gov. to Act
Bill Haskell writes Families Struggle Paying for Child Care While Working
Joel Eissenberg writes Time for Senate Dems to stand up against Trump/Musk
Lowest new jobless claims in over half a century
The first two of four data releases this morning were corporate profits for Q3 and jobless claims for last week.
Corporate profits, a long leading indicator, increased slightly in Q3 over Q2, by 1.9% or 4.2% depending on whether you include various inventory adjustments. Deflated by unit labor costs, they either increased by 0.3% or decreased by -0.1%. While they haven’t decreased significantly in any accounting, the big post-lockdown and stimulus-fueled pandemic surge is over.
Initial claims declined a huge -71,000 this week to 199,000, its lowest reading since 1969 when the US population was half of what it is now! The 4-week average declined -21,000 to 252,250, the lowest since 1973 except for 2017 through February 2020:
Continuing claims also declined -60,000 to a new pandemic low of 2,049,000:
Only a few weeks in the late 1980s, plus 2 months in 1999, plus the last 4 years of the last expansion were below this number:

I am sure the super-low number of initial claims this week has a lot to do with Thanksgiving week seasonality, so I expect a rebound next week. Still, this is yet another sign of a Boom in labor strength that has not been seen since the late 1990s at least.