Unsplash/The New York Public Library
The following is one story you’ll find in today’s edition of The Water Coolest’s free daily email newsletter. The Water Coolest is a daily business news and professional advice email newsletter geared towards bros (read: expect a hearty helping of unfiltered commentary and advice on how to suck less at work).
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Cue the unprecedented times commercial…
Another 3M people filed for unemployment benefits this week, similar to last week, bringing the grand total of claims to 36.5M over the past eight weeks. The good news? That number has been decreasing week over week since 7M claims were filed at the end of March. To put it in perspective before all this started it averaged around 200k.
Markets opened down on the news but were able to rally throughout the day with all three major indices ending positive. Silver linings?
At least we’re in it together…
Not quite. Low-income employees and women have been hit hardest. 39% of people making less than $40k were either furloughed or permanently laid off, compared to just 19% of people making between $40k and $100k.
California appears to be the worst off, as far as claims go, but anybody who’s ever driven past Skid Row knows that already. Gov Newsom said Cali’s unemployment rate could reach as high as 24.5% before it starts to decline again. Not if Elon has anything to say about it…
The bottom line…
It’s safe to say we’re all tired of these mind-boggling unemployment numbers, and it appears that the people processing them are too. Turns out the latest numbers had a few quirks in them. Connecticut reported roughly 298k unemployed, or 10 times the amount from a week prior thanks to a data entry error. Dammit Karen, always with the fat fingers!
But look, it’s not her fault. States have been suffering budget cuts of their own and repurposing staff to the unemployment department. It might just be me, but I don’t think more detail in the unemployment numbers is going to put people back into the workforce…
Water Cooler Talking Point(s)
💧 “Define “irony” … being laid off from your job at the unemployment office.” (Ian, The Water Coolest HQ)
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