First-time unemployment claims shattered expectations last week, rising to a two-month high just weeks after President Joe Biden said the U.S. economy was “on the move again.”
The Department of Labor found that 419,000 Americans filed for initial jobless benefits in the week that ended July 17—20 percent higher than the 350,000 estimate forecasted by economists.
The two-month high in new jobless claims comes just weeks after Biden seized on a June report that showed a pandemic low in the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits.
“No other major economy in the world is growing as fast as ours,” Biden said. “None of this success is an accident. It isn’t luck.”
While many House Democrats have tied an ongoing labor shortage to Biden’s enhanced unemployment benefits, the White House’s top economist recently blamed businesses for the hiring shortfall.- READ MORE
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