It’s still not over, but it’s getting close.
When we took a hard look at initial jobless claims as a leading indicator this past March, we wondered if this data series would live up to its historical record as a robust clue about the end of the recession. The answer is always in doubt in real time, but yesterday’s data points certainly keep hope alive.
New filings for jobless benefits dropped to 601,000 last week, the lowest since late-January, the Labor Department reported yesterday. To the extent these reports hold true to their record over the past 40 years, there’s still reason to think that the technical end of the recession has arrived or is imminent.
A bit of corroborating evidence arrived in yesterday’s retail sales report, which revealed a seasonally adjusted rise of 0.5% for May, the first monthly rise since February. That’s certainly welcome, all the more so since the gains were fairly broad, albeit with some exceptions. Nonetheless, there’s a reason for our qualifying label of “technical” above in considering the end of the recession now or in the near future.