Continuing Jobless Claims Rise Back Above ‘Maginot Line’; Ohio Fraud Unwind Continues

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time remains near year-to-date lows at 209k last week (in line with the revised 209k the prior week). However, the un-adjusted initial claims declined to 175k, the lowest since Oct 2022…

Source: Bloomberg

Ohio – yet again!!!! – was the state with the biggest decline in claims while California and Texas saw claims soar…

As a reminder…

Ohio is the DOL’s initial claims “slush fund” pic.twitter.com/0m2EDPRjIf

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 14, 2023

And the fraud unwind appears to be done…

Continuing claims rose above the Maginot Line of 1.7mm Americans. (rising to 1.702mm last week), also at year-to-date lows…

Source: Bloomberg

With regard to continuing claims, Goldman reminds us that ongoing seasonal distortions have increasingly weighed on the level of continuing claims over the last six months, and we now expect that the reversal of those distortions could exert a cumulative boost of 375k to the level of continuing claims between the end of September and March.

Just wait for that distortion to unwind.

One more thing… As we detailed previously, a good leading indicator for claims is worker adjusted and retaining notification reading.

The WARN Act obliges employers with more than 100 full-time workers to provide written notice to the state and the workers themselves at least 60-90 days ahead of planned plant closings and mass layoffs.

WARN data has begun to surge higher once again and as the chart below shows, it suggests initial claims has a big reality catch up coming soon!

Source: Bloomberg

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