WASHINGTON, D.C (BNO NEWS) — The U.S. Labor Department on Thursday announced that the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 451,000, a decrease of 27,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 478,000.

Measuring the week ending on September 4, the 4-week moving average was 477,750, a decrease of 9,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 487,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending August 28, with 4,478,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,480,000 as the fiscal year-to-date average of seasonally adjusted weekly insured unemployment, which corresponds to the appropriated AWIU trigger, was 4.986 million. 

States reported 4,510,645 persons claiming Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits for the week ending August 21, a decrease of 35,365 from the prior week. There were 3,156,763 claimants in the comparable week in 2009. EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending August 21 were in Puerto Rico (5.9 percent), New Jersey (4.6), Pennsylvania (4.6), Oregon (4.5), California (4.4), Connecticut (4.3), Alaska (4.1), Nevada (4.1), Rhode Island (4.0), and Wisconsin (3.9).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending August 28 were in New York (+4,891), Florida (+1,886), Nevada (+1,052), Oregon (+828), and Texas (+742), while the largest decreases were in California (-4,127), Illinois (-2,114), Iowa (-813), Michigan (-599), and Maryland (-550).

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