11/6/20: America's Scariest Charts Updated

The latest data on initial unemployment claims for the week ending June 6, 2020 is out today (release here: https://oui.doleta.gov/press/2020/061120.pdf). Initial unemployment claims are up another 1,537,120 in one week, though the rate of new additions is down slightly on the revised 1,620,010 new claims in the week ending May 30, 2020.

Here is the summary of the claims and jobs losses during the current recession as compared to all previous post-WW2 recessions:

Cumulative estimated jobs losses so far in this recession amount to 21,088,120, though this number is likely to change as we get more updates on actual employment figures. Cumulative number of new unemployment claims filed in this recession stands at 40,358,315. This number includes those who were denied benefits in prior filings, but subsequently re-filed their claims. Nonetheless, the number is an important indicator of just how woefully horrific the COVID19 pandemic has been on U.S. labour force.

Updating data for June for Non-Farm Payrolls, and incorporating official number for May 2020, reported last week:

Estimated payroll numbers are now down to the levels las seen in 3Q 2000, effectively implying that COVID19 has ashed more jobs than were created in almost the entire 21 years of this century.

Here is another way to visualize the above data:

Here is what this week's initial claims print means for the index of jobs market performance during the current recession, compared to the already widely-debunked optimistic jobs report of last week for May:

In effect, this week largely destroyed most of the 2.509 million jobs created myth paraded by President Trump last week. In reality, of course, we know that that jobs creation print was to a large extent the outrun of re-registrations and benefits expirations, plus the figment of the BLS data collection methods. For the best explanation of these factors, read: https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/surprise-the-bls-admits-another-phony-jobs-report and my take on this is: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/06/5620-incredible-jobs-report-meets.html.