US inflation may hit 40-year high amid pandemic, shocking Americans

The US is poised to enter Year Three of the pandemic with both a booming economy and a still-mutating virus. But for Washington and Wall Street, one Covid aftershock is starting to eclipse almost everything else.

Already-hot inflation is forecast to climb even further when November data comes out on Friday, to 6.8 per cent.

That would be the highest rate since Ronald Reagan was president in the early 1980s — and in the lifetimes of most Americans.

US jobless claims drop to 52-year low 
 

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plunged last week to the lowest level in 52 years, more evidence that the US job market is recovering from last year's coronavirus recession.

Unemployment claims dropped by 43,000 to 184,000 last week, the lowest since September 1969, the Labour Department said on Thursday. (AP/PTI)