US Unemployment Claims Jump to 898,000

According to this morning’s US Department of Labor report, states saw an additional 898,000 Americans file first-time unemployment insurance claims last week. That represents an increase of 53,000 from the previous week. The increase broke a four-week trend of decreases for the number of new claims.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending October 3 were in Florida (+9,933), Illinois (+6,877), Massachusetts (+4,021), North Carolina (+2,907), and Maryland (+1,714), while the largest decreases were in New Jersey (-3,504), Kansas (-3,312), Pennsylvania (-3,111), Louisiana (-2,835), and Washington (-2,474). 

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