Rise in jobless claims signals bump in recovery - Yahoo! Finance
published today
Quote:
The Labor Department report said the number of people continuing to claim regular benefits dropped slightly to just under 4.6 million. The continuing claims data lags behind initial claims by a week.
But the so-called continuing claims do not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits customarily provided by states and are now receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.
More than 5.9 million people received extended benefits in the week that ended Jan. 2, the latest period for which data are available. That's an increase of more than 600,000 from the previous week. The data for emergency benefits lags behind initial claims by two weeks.
The rising number of people claiming extended unemployment insurance indicates that even as layoffs are declining, hiring hasn't picked up. That leaves people out of work for longer periods .
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I'm in the latter category, on extended unemployment insurance. And the first 20 weeks of that is a about to expire. Keep people working and the rest becomes easy. I'm mre concerned about how I'm going to pay my bills than health coverage.