High-Frequency Update: 9-15-24
U.S. movie box office sales jumped up last week with the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Arizona initial claims for unemployment insurance fell for the fourth consecutive week for the week ended September 7, reaching 3,325. That was down from 3,767 the prior week but up 9.6% over the year. Claims were down 0.3% from 2019.
U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to 177,663 for the week ended September 7, down from 190,631 the prior week. That was up 1.2% over the year and up 10.8% from 2019.
The U.S. hotel occupancy rate fell seventh consecutive week, reaching 57.8% for the week ended September 7, as the summer travel season winds down. That was down 4.1% over the year and down 5.2% from 2019.
U.S. movie box office sales jumped to $187.0 million for the week ended September 12, with the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. That was up from $125.5 million the prior week and up 58.4% over the year. Sales were also up 4.8% from 2019. New movie releases were down 43.6% from 2019.
U.S. TSA traveler throughput fell to 16.2 million for the week ended September 7, down from 17.2 million the prior week. That was up 3.9% over the year and up 14.2% from 2019.
Arizona new business applications fell to 710 for the week ended August 31, down from 720 the prior week. That was down 1.4% over the year.
Data on seated diners at restaurants using the OpenTable app is no longer being updated to compare the current week to 2019 results.
As of October 15, 2022, Google stopped updating mobility data.
Key News Articles and Research (subscription may be required)
Curated by Valorie Rice, Senior Business Information Specialist
Arizona and general topics: Two years later, money from the CHIPS Act is moving (Route-Fifty 9/10)
Automation / AI: AI may not steal many jobs after all. It may just make workers more efficient (AP 9/2)
Demographic / socioeconomic / Census: How the pandemic changed – and didn’t change – where Americans are moving (Brookings 9/6)
Economy: Commercial real estate loan delinquencies see uptick among banks (PBJ 9/9)
Education / early childhood development: Targeted infrastructure spending can boost student outcomes (Brookings 9/6)
Energy / environment / infrastructure: Never closer and never farther away: the fight over updating Arizona’s rural groundwater law (AZPM 9/11)
Housing / real estate: Largest annual real increase in gross rental costs since 2011 (Census 9/12)
Prices / inflation: Are greedy companies to blame for grocery inflation? We looked at the data (NPR 9/9)
Public finance: Which provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire in 2025? (Brookings 9/5)
Wages / income / wealth: What’s across the border? Re-evaluating the cross-border evidence on minimum wage effects (NBER)
Workforce / employment / labor market: IT unemployment hits 6% amid overall U.S. jobs growth (WSJ 9/7)