By George Hammond, Ph.D., director and research professor, EBRC
Arizona initial claims for regular unemployment insurance fell slightly for the week ended July 4, to 25,774. Arizona initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance rose last week to 184,103. Total benefits paid from March through last week totaled $5.7 billion. To put that in perspective, that was roughly 1.7% of Arizona’s total personal income in 2019. Also keep in mind that these benefits are subject to income tax.
U.S. initial claims for regular unemployment insurance fell again for the week ended July 4, to 1.3 million. Initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance increased last week to 1.0 million, up from 996,842 the prior week.
The U.S. hotel occupancy rate declined slightly for the week ended July 4. It fell from 46.2% the prior week to 45.6% last week. It is not unusual for the occupancy rate to decline during the week including July 4.
U.S. movie ticket sales also weakened during the week ended July 2, with sales dropping to $502,585. That was 99.8% below the year ago level. There were just 10 movies released last week.
TSA traveler throughput increased (as usual) last week, rising to 4.3 million passengers. That was 76.4% below last year.
Seated diners (OpenTable data) as restaurants in Arizona, Phoenix, and nationally declined for the week ended July 4. For Arizona, seated diners were down 62.2% from the year-ago level. That was worse than performance during mid-June, when seated diners were down 44.1%. Phoenix followed a similar trend. Nationally, seated diner performance weakened over the week for the first time since mid-May.
In addition, Google Maps mobility data suggested further weakening during the week ended June 27. Arizona, Maricopa County, and Pima County all posted their second consecutive weekly decline relative to January.
Arizona business applications rose again during the week ended July 4, to 640. That was up 36.2% from a year ago and pulled the 52-week average up 1.5% compared to a year ago.
BROWSE ALL LIVE CHARTS & DOWNLOAD DATA
