Jobless claims rise to 200,000, remain near historic lows
Claims ticked up to 200,000, but layoffs stayed muted, leaving the labor market near decades-low levels even as inflation continues to squeeze households.
Low layoffs are still doing more to prop up the U.S. economy than they are to explain it. Initial jobless claims rose by 10,000 to 200,000 in the week ending May 2, but the increase left filings near historic lows and below the 205,000 that economists expected, a reminder that employers remain reluctant to shed workers even as inflation and other pressures continue to weigh on households.
The latest figure followed an unusually weak run of claims. The prior week was revised up by 1,000 to 190,000, a reading that had already stood out as the lowest since 1969. The four-week moving average, which smooths out weekly volatility, slipped to 203,250 from a revised 207,750, a sign that the broader trend still points to a tight labor market rather than a sudden turn in layoffs.
Continuing claims also eased, falling to 1.766 million. The Labor Department separately reported insured unemployment at 1,785,000 for the week ending April 18, with an insured unemployment rate of 1.2 percent. Taken together, those figures suggest that while Americans are still finding work and remaining on payrolls, the labor market is not immune to strain from slower growth, elevated prices and uneven business confidence.
The comparison with a year earlier reinforces how low current filings remain. The Labor Department said there were 224,021 initial claims in the comparable week in 2025, well above the latest level. Historical data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows the series stretching back to January 7, 1967, while market data providers place the all-time peak at 6.137 million in April 2020, when the pandemic shut down large parts of the economy.
That gap matters. Jobless claims are one of the clearest weekly gauges of layoffs, not of hiring strength, consumer confidence or real purchasing power. For that reason, the latest rise to 200,000 says more about a labor market that is still absorbing shocks than about an economy free of pain. The headline number remains low by any long-run standard, but it sits alongside persistent inflation that continues to erode household budgets and complicate the outlook for growth.
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