The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week proved greater than expected, raising concern about the state of the economy south of the border as lawmakers struggle to move forward on a new coronavirus stimulus package.
The U.S. Labor Department said initial jobless claims for the week ending Aug. 15 came in at 1.106 million. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a total of 923,000. Initial claims for the previous week were also revised higher by 8,000 to 971,000.
Thursday's report reflected the first increase in new jobless claims in three weeks. And new unemployment claims jumped back above their lowest level since the escalation of the pandemic in the U.S. in March during the week ended Aug. 8.
At more than 1.1 million, last week’s total for new claims was well above the pre-pandemic record high of 665,000 from March 2009 during the Global Financial Crisis, and reflected another wave of individuals newly filing for unemployment insurance as the coronavirus pandemic continued to disrupt businesses large and small across the country. Before the coronavirus, new weekly jobless claims were coming in consistently below 250,000.
Since the week ended March 20, about 57.4 million Americans have now filed new unemployment insurance claims.
