Weekly Jobless Claims Report: Unemployment Applications Rise

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly jobless claims rose by 17,000 to 274,000 for the week ending April 30, higher than the median forecast for 260,000. The prior week was unchanged at 257,000.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors impacting this week’s initial claims and no state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending April 16.

The four-week moving average–which is widely considered a better gauge, as it irons out volatility–was 258,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 256,000. However, the report marks 61 consecutive weeks of initial claims coming in below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973. That threshold is typically associated with a firming labor market, but chronic long-term unemployment and weak labor force participation impacts the number on the surface.

Simply put, the more workers stay out of the labor force the smaller and fewer pool of workers eligible for unemployment insurance becomes.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending April 16 were in Alaska (3.9), Wyoming (3.1), New Jersey (2.6), West Virginia (2.6), California (2.5), Connecticut (2.5), Puerto Rico (2.5), Pennsylvania (2.4), Illinois (2.2), and Massachusetts (2.2).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending April 23 were in Illinois (+4,989), Massachusetts (+3,173), Rhode Island (+1,724), Kansas (+597), and Iowa (+488), while the largest decreases were in California (-3,546), New Jersey (-1,288), Pennsylvania (-1,020), Puerto Rico (-685), and Washington (-674).