Weekly initial jobless claims jumped back to above 1 million in the week ending August 15. Continuing claims, which lags initial jobless claims by one week, has declined for three weeks in a row. This week’s data indicate that the road to economic recovery may not be smooth, but bumpy.

The U.S. Department of Labor released the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report for the week ending August 15. The number of initial jobless claims increased by 135,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 1,106,000, from the previous week’s revised level of 971,000 claims. Weekly new claims brought the 22-week’s total to 57.4 million. The four-week moving average decreased to 1,175,750, from a revised average of 1,254,750 in the previous week.

Meanwhile, the number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment (in regular state programs), known as continuing claims, decreased by 636,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 14,844,000 in the week ending August 8. The four-week moving average declined to 15,841,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 16,168,000. The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate declined by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2% for the week ending August 8. The previous week’s rate was unrevised.

The U.S. Department of Labor also released the advanced number of actual initial claims under state programs without seasonal adjustments. The unadjusted number of advanced initial claims totaled 891,510 in the week ending August 8, a decrease of 52,776 from the previous week.

The chart below presents the top 10 states ranked by the number of advanced initial claims for the week ending August 15. California, Florida and New York had the most advanced initial claims. California led the way with 201,640 initial claims, followed by Florida with 66,322 initial claims and New York with 62,397 initial claims. Meanwhile, Vermont, South Dakota and Wyoming had the least advanced initial claims across all the states.

Compared to the previous week, New Jersey, New York and Texas had the largest increases in advanced initial claims for the week ending August 15. New Jersey reported an increase of 10,809 advanced initial claims. New York increased by 9,766 and Texas increased by 9,112. Georgia (-4,246), Nevada (-4,206) and Puerto Rico (-2,961) and had the largest decreases in advanced initial claims.

Tags: continuing claims, COVID-19, initial claims, insured unemployment rate, jobless claims