How many Americans are receiving unemployment benefits right now? As crazy as it sounds, the answer is, "Nobody knows." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/business/economy/unemployment-claims-numbers.html

One thing that's clear: The 30 million "continuing claims" reported by the Department of Labor almost certainly overstates the number of people *currently* receiving benefits, perhaps by 5 million or more.

I won't retread my (very long) thread from the other day trying to estimate how many people are receiving Pandemic Unemployment benefits. But I'm increasingly convinced that number is less than 10 million. https://twitter.com/bencasselman/status/1304553665143934976

The real lesson here is that when we don't invest enough in the systems for collecting and disseminating data, we risk being left without reliable numbers when we need them most.

As @hshierholz put it to me: “This does really underscore just how important it is that we make key investments in our data infrastructure, because now we know what it feels like when we don’t have good data."

For a more detailed breakdown of what's going on right now, and how different numbers are telling different stories, check out this great analysis from @CAPolicyLab:
https://www.capolicylab.org/news/new-analysis-california-unemployment-claims-surged-in-august-driven-in-part-by-questionable-increase-in-pua-claims/
And this thread based on it from @TJ_Hedin: https://twitter.com/TJ_Hedin/status/1305856056866811911