Jobless claims data, for the second week in a row, beat expectations and saw a drop even with a downward revision, according to the Department of Labor’s weekly survey…(DOL)
- Seasonally adjusted initial claims were 243,000 for the week ending August 20th, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week’s downwardly revised level at 245,000.
- Economists had projected that claims would increase to 253,000
State level. The decline in initial claims was thanks to New Jersey with 1,536 fewer claims as well as California (-1,312) and Indiana (-1,206). Unfortunately, Massachusetts saw the biggest increase of new claims with a whopping 3,740 new claims followed by Connecticut (+1,553) and New York (+442)
Continuing claims also saw a dip to a seasonally adjusted 1.415M for the week ending August 13th. This was a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week’s downwardly revised level.
- Economists had projected that claims would rise to 1.442M