Economy

Jobless Claims Fall Unexpectedly to Just 211K for Week Ending May 18

U.S. jobless claims graph on a tablet screen. (Photo: AdobeStock)

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ending May 18, beating the consensus forecast. The 4-week moving average declined by 4,750 from the unrevised prior week to 220,250.

The forecasters expected claims to rise by 3,000 to 215,000.

	Prior	Consensus Forecast	Forecast Range	Actual
Initial Jobless Claims – Level	212 K	215 K	210 K to 218 K	211 K
4-Week Average – Level	225.0 K			220.25 K

No state was triggered “on” the Extended Benefits program during the week ending May 4.

In lagging data, advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate remained unchanged at a very low 1.2% for the week ending May 11.

The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs decreased by 1,898, or or -0.1% to a total 1,537,165. A year earlier the rate was 1.1% and the volume was 1,604,119.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending May 4 were in Alaska (2.4), New Jersey (2.0), California (1.9), Connecticut (1.8), Puerto Rico (1.6), Illinois (1.5), Massachusetts (1.5), Pennsylvania (1.5), Rhode Island (1.5), and Washington (1.4).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 11 were in California (+1,226), Michigan (+379), Oregon (+295), Tennessee (+267), and Mississippi (+257), while the largest decreases were in New York (-15,394), Pennsylvania (-1,040), Illinois (-484), Kansas (-479), and Iowa (-469).

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PPD Business Staff

PPD Business, the economy-reporting arm of People's Pundit Daily, is "making sense of current events." We are a no-holds barred, news reporting pundit of, by, and for the people.