Jobless claims drop lower and lower
Initial jobless claims declined to 348,000 claims from last week鈥檚 revised 353,000 claims, while continued claims declined by 9,000 resulting in an 'insured' unemployment rate of 2.6 percent
This chart shows the rate of initial and continued jobless claims over the past three years. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits has dropped steadily since peaking in 2009.
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Today鈥檚 jobless claims showed that both initial and continued unemployment claims declined while seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.
Seasonally adjusted 鈥渋nitial鈥� declined to 348,000 claims from last week鈥檚 revised 353,000 claims while seasonally adjusted 鈥渃ontinued鈥� claims declined by 9,000 resulting in an 鈥渋nsured鈥� unemployment rate of 2.6%.
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 3.31 million people receiving federal 鈥渆xtended鈥� unemployment benefits.
Taken together with the latest 3.86 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.17 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.