May 16 2020

The Long Winter: Number of people filing for unemployment insurance hits 36.4 million and unemployment rate at highest level since the Great Depression

The economic situation continues to deteriorate as 36.4 million Americans have now filed for unemployment insurance in the last 8 weeks. This is a daunting number that is down right shocking given that only two months ago, we were near “full employment” and the stock market was near all-time highs. The number of people filing […]

May 2 2020

30.3 million Americans have filed for unemployment insurance in the last six weeks. There is also a backlog so numbers would be higher

The unemployment figures that we are seeing are startling. We have now seen 30.3 million people file for unemployment insurance in the last six weeks. These numbers are historic even when comparing to the Great Depression.  The notion that we will have a sharp V-shape recovery is simply not going to be the case. While […]

Mar 21 2020

A surge of unemployment claims is coming from the COVID-19 outbreak: A record 2 million plus people have filed for unemployment.

The COVID-19 outbreak has jarred an 11-year bull market into a sudden downturn and what looks to be a recession. What is more startling is that we are now anticipating a record number of unemployment claims hitting the system that even dwarfs what was seen during the Great Depression. Various reports show that unemployment claims […]

May 14 2012

The curious calculus of the US employment numbers – Decline of 2.4 million in extended and emergency unemployment benefits coincides with 2.2 million rise in disability benefits. Last time we had 8.1 percent unemployment rate we had 14,000,000 fewer Americans on food stamps.

The math on the employment situation in the US simply does not compute.  Over the last few years, many have escaped the employment market by diving into massive student loan debt.  This looks good for the employment figures since these people are not counted as part of the workforce.  The headline unemployment rate of 8.1 […]

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