U.S. Unemployment Beneficiaries Increased Modestly in the Latest Week
Summary
- But total beneficiaries decreased over prior week.
- The insured unemployment rate eased back to its recent "favored" rate of 1.2%.
The U.S. Department of Labor paid unemployment compensation benefits to 247,000 recipients in the week ended May 31, up from 239,000 in the prior week; that was revised marginally from 240,000 reported a week ago. These data are seasonally adjusted by the Labor Department. The four-week moving average of initial claims was 235,000, up from 230,000 the week before.
The total number of unemployment beneficiaries in that prior week was 1,904,000, down from 1,907,000. The four-week moving average was 1,895,000 up from 1,887,000.
The insured unemployment rate for the latest week, that is, the number of unemployment beneficiaries as a % of covered employment, remained at 1.2%. It has been at that amount for an extended period.
Economic conditions vary widely by state. For the week ended May 17 the highest unemployment rates were in the New Jersey (2.2%), District of Columbia (1.8%), Illinois and New York (all 1.6%) and Minnesota (1.3%). The lowest rates were South Carolina (0.3%), Florida (0.4%) and Nebraska, Kentucky, North Dakota, North Carolina (all 0.5%). Unlike our usual presentation, these state rates are all seasonally adjusted; that varies from our usual presentation of the raw, unadjusted data.
Data on weekly unemployment claims are from the Department of Labor itself, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They begin in 1967 and are contained in Haver’s WEEKLY database and summarized monthly in USECON. Data for individual states are in REGIONW back to December 1986. The expectations figure is from the Action Economics Forecast Survey in the AS1REPNA database.
Carol Stone, CBE
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Carol Stone, CBE came to Haver Analytics in 2003 following more than 35 years as a financial market economist at major Wall Street financial institutions, most especially Merrill Lynch and Nomura Securities. She has broad experience in analysis and forecasting of flow-of-funds accounts, the federal budget and Federal Reserve operations. At Nomura Securites, among other duties, she developed various indicator forecasting tools and edited a daily global publication produced in London and New York for readers in Tokyo. At Haver Analytics, Carol is a member of the Research Department, aiding database managers with research and documentation efforts, as well as posting commentary on select economic reports. In addition, she conducts Ways-of-the-World, a blog on economic issues for an Episcopal-Church-affiliated website, The Geranium Farm. During her career, Carol served as an officer of the Money Marketeers and the Downtown Economists Club. She has a PhD from NYU's Stern School of Business. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has a weekend home on Long Island.
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