GDP and Initial Claims

There were two economic reports this morning. The first is that initial jobless claims rose slightly to 213,000. I find it remarkable that this figure is still so low, and it’s been this way for a long time.

In April, initial claims dipped down to 193,000 which was the lowest since the 1960s.

This figure tends to bounce around so economists like to look at the four-week moving average. This also tends to track the unemployment rate so I don’t see a major uptick in the jobless rate. At least, not yet. The unemployment rate has been stuck at 3.7% for the last three months.

The other report was the final revision to Q2 GDP. This is an odd report because Q2 started six months ago and ended three months ago. Right now, the focus is on Q3 and Q2.

The initial report showed real annualized growth of 2.1% in the second quarter. Last month, that was revised down to 2.0%. This month, it was again 2.0%. Those are the smallest revisions I can remember. The takeaway is that the economy continues to grow, but modestly.

Posted by on September 26th, 2019 at 11:41 am


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