The Number Of Americans On Jobless Benefits Hovers Near One-Year Highs

Initial jobless claims continues to hover 'bullishly' around the 200k mark (last week was 192k), despite the ongoing news of mass layoffs (and severance), dropping to four-week lows...

Source: Bloomberg

Continuing jobless claims also dipped last week from 1.691mm to 1.654mm (the biggest drop since December), but has been generally flat for 3 months.

California saw the biggest drop in claims for the second week in a row...

Finally, the total number of Americans claiming some form of unemployment benefit rose to 1.941mm last week, hovering at one-year highs...

Source: Bloomberg

It seems the transmission mechanism from Fed rates to the 'real' economy is broken... or this lag is unprecedented.