Jobless claims come in above expectations again with 1.48 million

Hundreds of unemployed Kentucky residents wait in long lines outside the Kentucky Career Center for help with their unemployment claims on June 19, 2020 in Frankfort, Kentucky

(Image credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images)

published 25 June 2020

Weekly jobless claims have once again come in above expectations.

The Labor Department on Thursday said 1.48 million Americans filed initial unemployment claims last week, which is down 60,000 claims from the week before. It's the 12th straight week that the number has dropped, per The Associated Press, but this was also higher than the 1.35 million claims economists had been expecting, CNBC reports.

That makes this the second week in a row that the unemployment claims have been higher than forecast, Bloomberg notes. Last week, there were about 1.5 million initial jobless claims reported, more than the 1.3 million expected. This adds "to signs that the recovery is cooling amid a pickup in coronavirus cases," Bloomberg writes. The number of continuing claims fell to 19.5 million, which CNBC notes is the first time that number has been below 20 million in two months.

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But this is also the 14th week that there have been more than one million new unemployment claims. For comparison, the record before the coronavirus pandemic was 695,000. The fact that such a high number of Americans are still filing claims about three months after the coronavirus crisis started, The Washington Post's Heather Long writes, is "highly concerning," as "that number should be coming down if the job situation was truly improving."

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.

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