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Economy in Brief
U.S. PPI Posts Broad-Based Strength in March
The Producer Price Index for final demand jumped 1.0% (4.2% y/y) during March...
U.S. Wholesale Inventories Post Strong February Gain; Sales Fall
Wholesale inventories increased 0.6% (2.0% y/y) during February...
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Unexpectedly Increase
Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 744,000 during the week ended April 3...
Total PMIs Gain Traction in March
The PMI readings for March show improvement again...
U.S. Consumer Credit Outstanding Bounces Back in February
Consumer credit outstanding surged $27.6 billion during February...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
Monetary Policy Blunder: Not Managing Economic & Financial Outcomes Equally
Monetary Policy at a Crossroad: Policymakers Need to Break Promise of Easy Money to Avoid Boom-Bust
State Coincident Indexes in January
Data Surprises, Markets and COVID
by Carol Stone, CBE May 16, 2019
Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell 16,000 to 212,000 (-4.1% year-on-year) during the week ended May 11 from an unrevised reading of 228,000 in the previous week. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a smaller decline to 223,000. The four-week moving average of initial claims increased to 225,000 from 220,250.
Continuing claims for unemployment insurance stood at 1.660 million (-4.4% y/y) in the week ending May 4, from 1.688 million in the prior week, which was revised up from 1.684 million. The four-week moving average of claimants edged up to 1.668 million from 1.667 million.
The insured rate of unemployment remained at the record low 1.2%, where it has been for a whole year now, since May 2018. Data on the insured unemployment rate go back to 1971.
Insured rates of unemployment vary widely by state. During the week ending April 27th, the lowest rates were in South Dakota (0.33%), Nebraska (0.34%), Florida (0.39%), North Carolina (0.43%) and Indiana (0.45%). The highest rates were in Pennsylvania (1.67%), Connecticut (1.87%), California (2.01%), New Jersey (2.25%), and Alaska (2.46%). Among the other largest states by population not mentioned above the rate was 0.91% in Texas, 1.48% in New York and 1.63% in Illinois. These state data are not seasonally adjusted.
Data on weekly unemployment claims going back to 1967 are contained in Haver's WEEKLY database, and they are summarized monthly in USECON. Data for individual states are in REGIONW. The expectations figure is from the Action Economics Forecast Survey, carried in the AS1REPNA database.
Unemployment Insurance (SA, 000s) | 05/11/19 | 05/04/19 | 04/27/19 | Y/Y % | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Initial Claims | 212 | 228 | 230 | -4.1 | 220 | 244 | 262 |
Continuing Claims | -- | 1,660 | 1,688 | -4.4 | 1,756 | 1,961 | 2,135 |
Insured Unemployment Rate (%) | -- | 1.2 | 1.2 |
1.2 |
1.2 | 1.4 | 1.6 |