Initial Claims Down 35% Since April

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by another 20,000 last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the fifth consecutive weekly drop to the lowest level since March 2020.

The report said for the week ending May 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims fell 385,000, a decrease of 20,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Since April 24 (when 590,000 claims were filed), initial claims have fallen by 35 percent.

This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020, when it was 256,000. The previous week’s level revised down by 1,000 from 406,000 to 405,000. The four-week moving average fell to 428,000, a decrease of 30,500 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020, when it was 225,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 2.7 percent for the week ending May 22, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 22 rose to 3,771,000, an increase of 169,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level revised down by 40,000 from 3,642,000 to 3,602,000. The four-week moving average rose to 3,687,750, an increase of 22,750 from the previous week’s revised average.

The report said the advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 425,450 in the week ending May 29, an increase of 6,014 (or 1.4 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected an increase of 25,593 (or 6.1 percent) from the previous week. Labor reported 1,611,720 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. In addition, for the week ending May 29, 51 states reported 76,098 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

Labor said the advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5 percent during the week ending May 22, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted level of insured unemployment in state programs totaled 3,504,163, an increase of 22,860 (or 0.7 percent) from the preceding week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 146,538 (or -4.2 percent) from the previous week. A year earlier the rate was 13.1 percent and the volume was 19,118,945.

The report said total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending May 15 fell to 15,435,982, a decrease of 366,178 from the previous week. Labor reported 30,770,615 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2020.