It's Thursday, August 13, 2020, just after market closed in New York. This is the Real Vision daily briefing. I'm Ash Bennington in New York,

joined shortly by our managing editor Ed Harrison. But first with today's stories, Peter Cooper.

Thanks, Ash.

Today, initial jobless claims have dropped below 1 million to 963,000, seasonally adjusted for the week

ending August 8th.

This is the first time that initial job this claims fell below the 1 million level

since the beginning of the pandemic in March. For the week ending August 1st, continuing claims

seasonally adjusted fell to 15.5 million from 16.1 million.

Both of these data points beat economists' expectations

for initial claims of 1.1 million

and continuing claims of 15.8 million.

Together with this data and the most recent jobs report from July,

which stated that non-farm payrolls increased 1.8 million for a combined 9.3 million jobs added in the past three months, the jobless

rate fell to 10.2 percent.

This is all occurring as the total number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. is receding

from its highest levels last month and the effect of

fiscal aid for America is fading. How the labor market is recovering could also

further drive a wedge between the two parties in Congress, overcoming to an agreement on a new stimulus bill,

should they resume talks at a later time, if at all. Overall, it demonstrates that the rest in the

labor market is currently easing as hiring is picking up, even though

unemployment is still historically high.

Despite all of this progress, there is still a long way to go as the employment gains experienced

...