I get tired of lazy reporters or lazily programmed bots who don’t read beyond the 2nd paragraph of Labor Department press releases.

Torrent of 2.4 million new claims under state & federal programs. PUA claims by gig workers now 45% of total unemployment. Many people are hired back, but many are newly laid off. Labor market recovery remains hard to discern.

Claims by gig workers under federal PUA program soar, now 44% of total unemployment claims. Where’s the “V-Shaped” recovery of the labor market?

Labor Department today: People on state & federal unemployment insurance jumped to 31.5 million, worst ever.
Bureau of Labor Statistics today: 4.8 million jobs created, unemployment dropped by 3.2 million.
BLS under-reported unemployment by 13.7 million, based on data from the Labor Department. What’s happening is infuriating. Read and cringe.

Had a setback. Over 11 million gig workers on unemployment insurance. But four states, including Florida, still can’t process federal PUA claims.

29.2 million people still claim unemployment insurance, gig workers 1/3 of total. Some states still not processing claims under federal programs. My “Reasonable Approximation” for the Unemployment Rate.

No one was prepared for a collapse like this. The data are all over the place. Two government agencies differ by 9 million unemployed. The jobs crisis bottomed in May. But “over 30 million” people remain without work. Making sense of the chaos.

The 20 industries with biggest job losses & the 20 with biggest gains. The unemployment rate would have been 16% if people had responded correctly, said the BLS; that would be 25.3 million unemployed. Abysmal.

Gig workers now over 1/3 of “insured unemployed.” Gut-wrenching 1.6 million people got laid off in a week, others got their jobs back.