In the week ending December 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 350,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 362,000. The 4-week moving average was 356,750, a decrease of 11,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 368,000.
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending December 8 was 5,475,708, an increase of 73,279 from the previous week. There were 7,231,771 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2011.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending December 8 were in Alaska (6.2), New Jersey (3.9), Pennsylvania (3.8), Puerto Rico (3.7), California (3.5), Montana (3.5), Oregon (3.5), Connecticut (3.3), Nevada (3.3), Illinois (3.2), and Wisconsin (3.2).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending December 15 were in Florida (+5,080), Kentucky (+1,009), Mississippi (+651), Iowa (+646), and Indiana (+549), while the largest decreases were in California (-6,867), New Jersey (-5,101), Pennsylvania (-3,412), New York (-2,938) and Michigan (-2,889
