Layoffs are the lowest since 1969. Consumers feel worse than in 2008.
The four-week average of initial jobless claims was 196,750 in the week ending October 24, 2026 (released October 29), the lowest since October 1969 in a weekly record that starts in January 1967. In the same month the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index printed 48.1 for September (released October 23), the second-lowest month in a record that starts in November 1952. Only May 2026, at 44.8, was lower, and the low of the 2008 recession was 55.3 in November 2008. The twelve-month average of sentiment, 51.9, is the lowest in the record, below the 52.5 of the month before.
The two series are usually read as one cycle: claims rise as sentiment falls, and the chart shows them moving that way through every recession since 1967. Today they point opposite ways, with layoffs at a half-century low and households near their gloomiest. Claims count people filing for unemployment insurance and say nothing about hiring or prices, and sentiment is a survey. The chart describes both and does not say which gives way.
Initial Jobless Claims — the weekly count and its four-week average, live
This chart is a frozen capture — the numbers above are as of Claims for the week ending Oct 24, 2026; sentiment for Sep 2026 and will not update. The live page recomputes daily from the same dataset. A square version of this chart is available for feeds that crop landscape images.
