Initial Unemployment Claims Remain Elevated

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 248,000 in the week ended July 1 from a downwardly revised 236,000 in the previous week (initially reported as 239,000). The Action Economic Forecast Survey had looked for 245,000 new claims to have been filed. The four-week average slipped slightly to 253,250 from 256,750 the previous week, which was the highest level since the second week of November 2021.

By contrast to the initial claims figures, the number of continued weeks claimed, or “insured unemployment,” fell to 1.720 million in the week ended June 24 from a downwardly revised 1.733 million (initially 1.742 million) in the prior week. This is the lowest level since the third week of February. Even though the level of initial claims has jumped up over the past month or so, the level of continued claims (that is, the number of individuals receiving unemployment compensation) has fallen rather consistently since early April. This would imply that individuals that have recently lost their job have found a new one relatively quickly.

The insured unemployment rate, that is, continued claims as a percent of covered employment, held at 1.2%. This rate has been between 1.2% and 1.3% since late-January and compares with a series low of 0.9% in September and early-October of last year.

In the week ended June 24, the total number of continued weeks claimed for all unemployment insurance programs rose to 1.700 million (28.0% y/y), the highest level in eight weeks. The recent high was 2.000 million in late February. The total includes federal employees, newly discharged veterans, extended benefits and other specialized programs and is not seasonally adjusted. Claims in the discontinued Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation are no longer included in the main Labor Department press release.

The insured rates of unemployment in regular programs vary widely across states. In the week ended June 17, the highest insured rates of unemployment were in California (2.19%), New Jersey (2.09%), Massachusetts (1.78%), New York (1.60%) and Pennsylvania (1.58%). The lowest rates were in South Dakota (0.21%), Virginia (0.36%), North Dakota (0.38%), New Hampshire (0.38%) and Kansas (0.39%). Rates in other large states include Illinois (1.49%), Texas (1.11%), Ohio (0.87%) and Florida (0.45%). These state data are not seasonally adjusted.

Data on weekly unemployment claims go back to 1967 and are contained in Haver's WEEKLY database, and they are summarized monthly in USECON. Data for individual states are in REGIONW. The expectations figure is from the Action Economics Forecast Survey, in the AS1REPNA database.