The number of people seeking unemployment assistance last week jumped to its highest point since the U.S. was coming out of the worst of the Covid pandemic four years ago.
According to statistics released by the Labor Department Thursday, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the week ending Sept. 6 rose to 263,000. That’s an increase of 27,000 from the previous week and marks the highest total since the week of Oct. 23, 2021. It was also well above the 231,000 new applications economists had forecast.
Weekly applications have mostly remained between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. began to emerge from the Covid pandemic.
The four-week average of claims rose to 240,500, a spike of 9,750. The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Aug. 30 was unchanged at 1.94 million.
