Sept. 10 (UPI) — Another 884,000 U.S. workers have filed for new unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday.
The report listed the new claims for the week ending Sept. 5, which was effectively unchanged from the previous week. It listed the unemployment rate at 9.2%, a slight increase.
Thursday’s report also revised up last week’s figure by 3,000 claims.
Most economists expected about 850,000 new unemployment filings.
The department said there are about 13.4 million continuing claims, which lag initial claims by a week.
The new figure marks just the third time since the start of the pandemic the weekly total has been fewer than 1 million.
Thursday’s report came one day after Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden unveiled a proposal to create new jobs in the United States and punish companies that send them overseas. Biden outlined his plan during an appearance in Michigan, a manufacturing-heavy state widely considered a key battleground state in the November election.
Also Wednesday, a new Gallup survey said three-quarters of Americans are planning to preserve, rather than spend, their financial savings over the next six months due to the COVID-19-induced economic recession.
