Tumbling retail sales and now surging jobless claims... perhaps the "low oil is awesome" narrative is not true after all. Initial Jobless claims surged to 316k (smashing expectations of 290k) and has not been higher since June 2014. The BLS reports no unusual activity - so economists can't hust shrug this one off. Details on state-by-state job losses are lagged a week so we will not know if this is Shale Oil region-related but yesterday's Beige Book and day after day of announced job cuts by the energy sector suggest it is.
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