Scholarship News

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – First time claims for unemployment compensation payments fell last week to 415,000, a decrease of 42,000 from the 457,000 initial claims filed during the week ending Jan. 22, U.S. Department of Labor officials announced Thursday.

It was better than some economists expected. It wasn’t enough to put a dent in the nation’s unemployment rate, although the figures are at least moving in the right direction. However, the percentage of unemployed workers covered by the unemployment compensation program is also edging downward.

Advance seasonally adjusted figures for Jan. 22, the latest week for which such statistics are available, showed that the insured unemployment rate was 3.1 percent, down by 0.1 percentage point from the 3.2 percent for the previous week.

The total number of people claiming jobless benefits in all programs was 9,298,859 during the week ending Jan. 15, the latest week for which those statistics are available.

Unemployment rates were still high enough in 35 states and the District of Columbia that jobless workers there qualified for extended benefits during the week of Jan. 15.

Those states were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

DOL officials said the highest insured unemployment rates by percentage in the week ending Jan. 15 were in:

• Alaska, 7.1 percent
• Montana, 5.5 percent
• Pennsylvania, 5.4 percent
• Idaho, 5.3 percent
• Oregon, 5.3 percent
• Wisconsin, 5.3 percent
• Puerto Rico, 5.2 percent
• Illinois, 4.9 percent
• Rhode Island, 4.8 percent
• Connecticut, 4.7 percent.

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