No one should doubt that an economic recovery is underway. But no one should assume that the rebound is robust or destined to quickly bring economic healing on a broad scale. It’s different this time.
The trend, at least, remains positive on a number of metrics, including the latest numbers on workers filing unemployment claims last week for the first time. New jobless claims rose 11,000 last week to 444,000, the Labor Department reports. But as our chart below suggests, the latest data point is statistical noise. The declining trend, in short, remains intact.
Since peaking in March 2009, weekly jobless claims have been on a steady downshift. As we’ve written many times, starting with this piece from early last year, a sustained decline in this measure bodes well for an upturn in the economic cycle. We’ve been arguing for some time now that the downshift in jobless claims has legs and so the natural forces of recovery are set to grow stronger. The latest report on this front offers no reason to change our view for the near-term future.
Daily Archives: January 14, 2010
FED’S BEIGE BOOK: THE RECOVERY REMAINS SLOW & SLUGGISH
The U.S. economy is recovering, but slowly, the Fed advised yesterday in its latest “beige book” report. That’s no great surprise and in fact we’d have fallen off our chair if the central bank said anything different. Indeed, we’ve been forecasting no less for some time on these pages, such as our view from last June, when we worried that “the past and current ills weighing on the economy will remain a heavy burden for many quarters and, to some extent, several years.”