Strong Economic Data Supports Record Q3 GDP Growth
10/22/2020
Initial claims dropped significantly last week, with “only” 787k Americans requesting benefits according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This was well below both the 870k median forecast as well as the prior week’s 989k count (revised lower to 842k). Apparently, much of the improvement had to do with California filings. The Golden State had been repeating the same count for several weeks as it updated its’ processing system, but was back to business for the week ending October 17th reporting a sharply lower number. Continuing claims also showed improvement with the total number of Americans receiving state unemployment benefits tumbling from just over 10 million to just under 8.4 million for the week ending October 10th.
