Weekly Jobless Claims Drop in the Week Ending July 4th

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 1.314 million Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday July 4^th. A decline of 99,000 from the previous week’s revised level. It marks the fourteenth straight week of declines in initial claims since the week ending March 28th, when it hit a record peak of 6.9 million. It does, however, still remain above 1 million. The 4-week moving average was 1,437,250, a decrease of 63,000 from the previous week’s revised average. This week’s new claims brought the fifteen-week total to 50.041 million. The number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment, known as continuing claims, decreased by 698,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 18.062 million for the week ending June 27^th. Continuing claims remain below 20 million for the third week in a row. The 4-week moving average was 19,085,500, a decrease of 636,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 12.4% for the week ending June 27, a decrease of 0.5 percentage point from the previous week’s revised rate.