Economic Data Shows Fewer Workers Losing Jobs and Americans Eager to Spend
A suite of stronger-than-expected economic data on jobs, retail sales, and corporate earnings came out Thursday, reinforcing the view that a potential boom, much-anticipated by economists, may be getting more traction.
Overall, the data shows fewer workers losing their jobs, Americans eager to spend more, and corporate profits getting fatter, sending all three major Wall Street indexes higher on the opening bell.
On the jobs front, the Labor Department said in a release (pdf) that the number of U.S. workers filing for unemployment fell last week to 576,000. That’s the lowest number of weekly jobless claims since the onset of the pandemic, which sent them surging above 6 million in March 2020. Economists polled by Reuters predicted 700,000 jobless applications last week.