Weekly Jobless Claims Decline More Than Anticipated in the Week Ending 1st August 2020

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 1.186 million Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday August 1^st. A decrease of 249,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Well below the peak of 6.9 million which dates back to the week ending March 28^th.  Claims continue to remain above 1 million. The 4-week moving average was 1,337,750 a decrease of 31,000 from the previous week’s revised average. This week’s new claims brought the nineteen-week total to 55.377 million. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment, known as continuing claims during the week ending July 25^th was 16,107,000, a decrease of 844,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Continuing claims remain below 20 million for the fifth week in a row. The 4-week moving average was 16,628,250, a decrease of 413,250 from the previous week’s revised average. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 11.0% for the week ending July 25, a decrease of -0.6 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate.