Jobs Are Starting to Come Back, But Bankruptcies Are Soaring

Roughly 2.1 million Americans lost their jobs last week, according to Labor Department data. In this economy, that qualifies as good news.

Yes, 2.1 million initial unemployment claims is an awful lot of initial unemployment claims. But it is also a smaller number of claims than were filed the previous week. In fact, the number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits has now declined for eight straight weeks. More significantly, the number of Americans who just joined the unemployment roles is smaller than the number who just left them: Even with 2.1 million additions, the ranks of the jobless still (ostensibly) declined by 3.8 million in recent days. Further, since America’s unemployment insurance offices are woefully underfunded, large backlogs of unprocessed unemployment insurance applications have amassed in many states. For this reason, it’s plausible that a significant portion of the 2.1 million “new” jobless claims reflect weeks-old layoffs.