The U.S. Department of Labor unemployment insurance weekly claims is now available. Most sites are discussing the drop of 4,000 from the previous weekly report. Instead, consider the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending December 20 was 2,405,601. For comparison, there were 4,205,127 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2013.
In the week ending January 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 294,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 298,000. The 4-week moving average was 290,500, a decrease of 250 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 290,750.
