The Labor Department reported Thursday that seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims rose 4,000 to 229,000 for the week ending June 6, the highest reading since February. The previous week's figure was unrevised at 225,000.
The 4,000 increase came in above analyst forecasts and pushed the four-week moving average to its highest point since early 2026
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
The Labor Department reported Thursday that seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims rose 4,000 to 229,000 for the week ending June 6, the highest reading since February. The previous week's figure was unrevised at 225,000.
At 219,000, the four-week moving average ticked up by 4,250 — a gauge that analysts watch because it irons out the sharp fluctuations that can appear in any single week's reading. For the week ending May 30, the number of Americans already collecting unemployment benefits climbed by 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.795 million.
Analysts caution that early-summer readings can be distorted because certain states permit school support workers — those outside classroom teaching roles — to collect unemployment over the break, a pattern that the government's seasonal adjustment methodology has historically struggled to fully capture. Stripping out seasonal adjustments, raw filings came in at 228,276 — up 39,713 week over week, with Pennsylvania, California, and Minnesota accounting for the steepest state-level increases.
The current level remains well below the pre-pandemic five-year average, according to Bloomberg.
The claims data arrives after the U.S. economy added 172,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in May, clearing analyst forecasts by a wide margin. The unemployment rate held at 4.3% for a third consecutive month. Even so, the May jobs report underscored persistent strains beneath the surface: workers out of a job for 27 weeks or longer hit their highest count since late 2021, and the typical spell of joblessness stretched to 11.6 weeks — up from 11.0 weeks in April and a level not seen since November of that year.
As noted in prior coverage of last week's claims report, weekly filings have stayed within a range of roughly 190,000 to 230,000 throughout 2026, a period during which the U.S.-led conflict with Iran has pushed commodity prices higher. May's consumer price index, released Wednesday, put annual inflation at 4.2% — a three-year high driven in large part by elevated energy costs. With price growth running well above the Fed's 2% target, policymakers are widely anticipated to leave borrowing costs unchanged at next week's meeting — the first to be chaired by Kevin Warsh following Jerome Powell's departure.
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