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Initial Claims
About This Indicator
What Are Initial Claims?
How many people filed a new claim for unemployment insurance in a week, seasonally adjusted, from the Department of Labor, averaged to months here.
Why Does It Matter?
Behind nearly every claim is someone who has just lost a job, counted within days and rarely revised much, while payrolls arrive monthly and are revised for months. A climb lasting several weeks is one of the earliest signs of a downturn; in April 2020, as the pandemic shut businesses, claims averaged about 4.7 million a week.
Can Politics Influence Them?
Indirectly, through whatever moves hiring and firing. The states set the rules for who may file, so a change in eligibility can move the count without the labor market moving.
Key Idea
Claims count people let go, not jobs that never opened, so the job market can cool for months with claims flat if employers simply stop hiring.
Scored: A Faster Fall or Slower Rise Ranks Better
Source: FRED (Department of Labor). ICSA.
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