Breaking: More than 22 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

There were 2,981,000 Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending May 9th, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading came in slightly worse than the market expectation of 2.5 million.

The report further showed that the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits rose to 22.8 million in the week ending May 2nd from 22.3 million (revised from 22.6 million).

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index inches slightly higher despite the muted market reaction. As of writing, the index was up 0.25% on the day at 100.46.

Additional takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 3,616,500, a decrease of 564,000 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 15.7 percent for the week ending May 2, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate."

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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