Jobless Claims Are Down This Week, but Don't Get Too Excited About That

The COVID-19 outbreak has spurred an unprecedented unemployment crisis that's left millions of Americans out of a job. Initially, it seemed as though things were going to get better during the summer as the economy opened back up, but then in mid-to-late July, weekly jobless claims rose for two weeks in a row. Thankfully, August brought some better news: New unemployment claims totaled 1.86 million this past week, which is actually the lowest number, on a weekly basis, since the start of the pandemic.