US initial jobless claims
- Prior was 183K
- 4-week moving average 189.2K vs 191.75K prior
- Continuing claims 1688K vs 1658K expected
- Prior continuing claims 1655K
This is a small uptick but in order to get the labor market back into balance, the Fed will want to see something much closer to 300K. I don't rule out that there's some kind of unidentified secular trend in claims that's skewing them particularly low but it could simply be that $15/hour jobs aren't hard to find in most of the country.
