Unemployment claims drop by 13,000 from last week
Unemployment claims continue on a significant declining trend, with initial and continued claims declining. In all, about 4 million people are receiving unemployment benefits.
This chart shows total unemployment claims from October 2009 through last week. Both initial and continued unemployment claims dropped last week, following a continuing decline.
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Today’s jobless claims report showed a decline to both initial unemployment claims and continued unemployment claims as a significant declining trend continued to materialize for both initial and traditional continued claims.
Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined by 13,000 to 403,000 claims from last week’s revised 416,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 7,000 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 4.24 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 3.94 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 8.18 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.
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