New jobless claims rose unexpectedly for a second time in a row last week in yet another sign the broader economy may struggle more than anticipated as the United States tries to contain the recent surge in Covid-19 cases.... [+]
to do that," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday while lamenting the delta variant's impact on the labor market."It just may take longer time," he added.About 351,000 people filed initial jobless claims in the week ending September 18, up 16,000 from the previous week, according to the weekly Economists were only expecting about 320,000 new claims, according to Bloomberg; the reading hit a pandemic low of 312,000 in the week ending September 4.
The number of people filing continuing claims also creeped up to about 2.8 million—131,000 more than the previous week. According to the Labor Department, there are still 8.4 million unemployed people in the United States, markedly higher than the 4 million in February 2020. "Hoped-for progress on new claims was not in this latest snapshot,” Bankrate analyst Mark Hamrick said Thursday, pointing to significant jumps in claims coming from California and Virginia, as well as Louisiana on the heels of Hurricane Ida.
this month, according to Bank of America, while another 3 million people saw their unemployment checks cut by $300 a week—marking the largest cutoff of U.S. unemployment benefits in history.