Weekly Jobless Claims Inch Lower in the Week Ending July 11th

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 1.3 million Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday July 11th. A decline of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised level. It marks the fifteenth 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 1,375,000 a decrease of 60,000 from the previous week’s revised average. This week’s new claims brought the sixteen-week total to 51.341 million. The number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment, known as continuing claims, decreased by 422,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 17.338 million for the week ending July 4th. Continuing claims remain below 20 million for the fourth week in a row. The 4-week moving average was 18,272,250 a decrease of 737,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 11.9% for the week ending July 4th, a decrease of 0.3 percentage point from the previous week’s revised rate.