Unemployment claims increase by 27,000
Initial unemployment claims increased to 412,000 from last week, but continued unemployment claims kept in line with a significant declining trend
This chart shows the total initial and continued unemployment claims from January 2009 through last week. The latest data show an notable increase to initial claims and a decline in continued claims.
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Today’s jobless claims report showed a notable increase to initial unemployment claims and declined to continued unemployment claims as a significant declining trend continued to materialize for both initial and traditional continued claims.
Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment increased by 27,000 to 412,000 claims from last week’s revised 385,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 58,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.9%.
Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.
Currently there are some 4.31 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 4.08 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 8.39 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.
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