Line
Weekly Jobless Claims
New U.S. unemployment insurance claims each week and their 4-week average, seasonally adjusted
Plays the chart through its history. Pauses are where the data set a record or moved most.
Initial claims, weekly · Continuation · the recent trend, flattening · 30 days
4-week average · Continuation · the recent trend, flattening · 30 days
Dashed: the projection from the latest reading. Shaded: the range about two in three outcomes land in. A projection, not a promise.
From the Department of Labor’s weekly claims report. The 4-week average is the department’s own published figure.
How many people filed a first claim for unemployment benefits each week. It is the most timely read on layoffs; the average smooths out holiday weeks and one-off spikes.
What this chart reads
- Initial Jobless Claimsas “Initial claims, weekly”latest 2026-10-10
- Initial jobless claims · 4-week averageas “4-week average”latest 2026-10-10
Sources
Initial Jobless Claims. Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration (Department of Labor), Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report, initial claims, seasonally adjusted (FRED series ICSA). Palanor pulls it from the FRED API (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) nightly.
Initial jobless claims · 4-week average. Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration (Department of Labor), Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report, 4-week moving average of initial claims, seasonally adjusted (FRED series IC4WSA). Palanor pulls it from the FRED API (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) nightly.
Charts are drawn from Palanor's signal library and recomputed from source data on every view. Transformations (changes, indexing, year-on-year rates) are Palanor's.