U.S. jobless benefits applications logged a modest drop last week, the Associated Press reports. They have remained in a historically low range since the American economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Aug. 9 fell by 3,000 to 224,000 — below the 230,000 new applications forecast by economists.
The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week gyrations, climbed by 750 to 221,750.
The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the prior week of Aug. 2 dropped by 15,000 to 1.96 million.
