Jobless claims drop by 12,000
鈥淚nitial鈥� unemployment declined 12,000 to 367,000 claims from last week鈥檚 revised 379,000 claims, while 鈥渃ontinued鈥� claims declined by 130,000.
This chart shows the change in the number of initial and continued unemployment claims over the past two years. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has been in steady decline since peaking in 2009.
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Today鈥檚 jobless claims showed declines to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted continued to trend below the closely watched 400K level.
Seasonally adjusted 鈥渋nitial鈥� unemployment declined 12,000 to 367,000 claims from last week鈥檚 revised 379,000 claims while seasonally adjusted 鈥渃ontinued鈥� claims declined by 130,000 resulting in an 鈥渋nsured鈥� unemployment rate of 2.7%.
Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored 鈥渆xtended鈥� unemployment benefit programs (the 鈥渆xtended benefits鈥� and 鈥淓UC 2008鈥� from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.
Currently there are some 3.49 million people receiving federal 鈥渆xtended鈥� unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 4.06 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.56 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.