Unemployment Claims Hit Record Numbers

Initial unemployment claims hit 3.283 million for the week ended March 21, the “highest the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series,” says the Department of Labor in its weekly unemployment report.

It’s an increase of just more than three million from the previous week and far surpasses the previous record of 695,000 which took place in October of 1982.

The insured unemployment rate was 1.803 million for the week ended March 14, the highest level since April 14, 2018, when they were 1.824 million, though those numbers are likely to rise when next week’s Department of Labor report is released.