Jobless Claims Rise, but Remain Under 400,000

Initial jobless claims rose last week to a seasonably adjusted 377,000, an increase of 21,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week moving average, a less volatile number that flattens out week-to-week fluctuations in the data, was 377,500, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week. First-time claims for unemployment benefits have remained below 400,000—a benchmark associated with sustained job growth--for most of the past three months. The number of Americans filing for continuing unemployment claims during the week ending Jan. 14 was 3,554,000, an increase of 88,000 from the prior week. The four-week moving average was 3,569,000, a decrease of 15,750.  States reported 2,882,033 persons claiming emergency unemployment benefits for the week ending Jan. 7 (the most recent data available), a decrease of 144,822 from the prior week. The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 7 was 7,638,233, a decrease of 188,612 from the previous week. The largest increases in initial jobless claims for the week ending Jan. 14 were in California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, and West Virginia. The largest decreases were in Alabama, Georgia, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. While the economy has gained some momentum to begin the New Year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday that the central bank did not expect the U.S. unemployment rate to go below 8.2 percent in 2012 or below 7.4 percent in 2013.