Another 1 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment insurance benefits last week, as the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic continue to reverberate across the economy.
The Labor Department released its report on weekly unemployment insurance claims Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics from the report, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Initial jobless claims, week ended Aug. 22: 1.006 million vs. 1.000 million expected and vs. 1.104 million during the prior week
- Continuing claims, week ended Aug. 15: 14.535 million vs. 14.44 million expected and vs. 14.758 million during the prior week
The report showed back-to-back weeks that jobless claims topped the 1 million mark, following a brief break below that level earlier in August. While an improvement from the pandemic-era high of nearly 6.9 million weekly new jobless claims at the end of March, the weekly new jobless claims sum of 1 million remained far above the 665,000 new claims filed at the pre-pandemic high in March 2009.
Since the week ended March 20 this year, more than 58 million Americans have so far filed new unemployment insurance claims.
The report showed back-to-back weeks that jobless claims topped the 1 million mark, following a brief break below that level earlier in August. While an improvement from the pandemic-era high of nearly 6.9 million weekly new jobless claims at the end of March, the weekly new jobless claims sum of 1 million remained far above the 665,000 new claims filed at the pre-pandemic high in March 2009.
Since the week ended March 20 this year, more than 58 million Americans have so far filed new unemployment insurance claims.
The majority of US states reported decreases in unadjusted new claims in this week’s print, reversing the trend seen during the prior week. California reported the greatest number of new claims at more than 209,000, for a rise of 19,000 versus last week. On the other hand, Florida saw the greatest numerical decrease in new unadjusted claims, with these falling by 27,000 to a total of 45,700.
New claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), or the federal program created to support individuals including the self-employed who are not typically eligible for state jobless claims, rose to 607,806 last week, up from 525,000 in the prior week.
