United States - Unemployment insurance: Initial claims

For the U.S., the weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims data are used in current economic analysis of unemployment trends in the Nation, and in each State. Initial claims measure emerging unemployment, and continued weeks claimed measure the number of persons claiming unemployment benefits. The dataset includes special programs created in response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

• Measurements:
  • Unitary count of claims (#)
  • Weeks of compensation
• Adjustments: 
• Not seasonally adjusted (NSA)
• Seasonally adjusted (SA)
• Native frequencies:
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Quarterly
• Start date: As early as 1967m1
• Geo coverage:
• U.S.
• All 50 states
• District of Columbia
• Puerto Rico
• U.S. Virgin Islands
• All concept-geo pairs exist: No

UI claims are reported by each state's unemployment insurance program offices. Claims may be used for monitoring workload volume, assessing state program operations, and for assessing labor market conditions.

States initially report claims directly taken by the state liable for the benefit payments, regardless of where the claimant who filed the claim resided. These are the basis for the advance initial claims and continued claims reported each week. These data come from ETA 538, Advance Weekly Initial and Continued Claims Report.

Definitions

Initial claims

a claim filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer, requesting determination of eligibility for the UI program. The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it indicates emerging labor market conditions in the country. However, these are weekly administrative data which are difficult to seasonally adjust, making the series subject to some volatility.

Continued weeks claimed

after filing an initial claim and experiencing a week of unemployment, a person then files a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment. Continued claims are also referred to as insured unemployment. The count of U.S. continued weeks claimed also indicates labor market conditions. Continued claims reflect the current number of insured unemployed workers filing for UI benefits. While continued claims are not a leading indicator (they roughly coincide with economic cycles at their peaks and lag at cycle troughs), they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the U.S. economy

Covered employment

when an employee performs a service for a person or organization in return for compensation in the form of covered wages. Wages paid to employees in covered employment are used as a basis in establishing an unemployment insurance benefit account, if an employee becomes unemployed by no fault of their own. Employers with covered employment are required to pay state unemployment insurance tax on the taxable wages paid to employees or reimburse unemployment insurance benefits collected by former employees. In the majority of states, your base period is a one-year time span consisting of the last four out of the most recent six calendar quarters worked before filing a UI claim. In most cases, unemployment agencies will look at a base period of these four full calendar quarters when determining eligibility (attachment to the work force). Covered employment is changed every thirteen weeks (quarterly).

Weekly changes in the levels of initial claims and continued claims undergo regularly occurring fluctuations, which may result from seasonal changes in weather, major holidays, the opening and closing of schools, or other similar events. Because these seasonal events follow a more or less regular pattern each year, their influence on the level of a series can be tempered by adjusting for regular seasonal variation, making trend and cycle developments easier to spot. At the beginning of each calendar year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) with a set of seasonal factors to apply to the unadjusted data during that year.

Advance data

The source releases Advance data that follows a different methodology than the Standard data. Advance data at the state level are more timely by one week, but Standard data are accurate and suitable for historical comparison. To get the best of both versions, you may want to take the latest week of data from the Advance series and append it to the Standard series.

The source writes: 

Advance claims are not directly comparable to claims reported in prior weeks. Advance claims are reported by the state liable for paying the unemployment compensation, whereas previous weeks reported claims reflect claimants by state of residence. In addition, claims reported as "workshare equivalent" in the previous week are added to the advance claims as a proxy for the current week's "workshare equivalent" activity.

When using national data, it is better to use Standard data. The Advance data at the national level is not more timely than the Standard national data. Further, Standard national data is revised for accuracy but Advance national data is not. We include Advance national data for comparison purposes. 

Seasonally adjusted data

In September 2020, the source changed its seasonal factors from multiplicative to additive. This does not affect Moody's seasonally adjusted series. The three series impacted are:

• UNIW.IUSA  = Unemployment insurance: Initial claims, (#, SA) -- Break at 22 Aug 2020
• UNCW.IUSA  = Continuing claims, (#, SA) -- Break at 15 Aug 2020
• UIURW.IUSA = Insured unemployment rate, (%, SA) -- Break at 15 Aug 2020

Moody's Analytics supplements

We seasonally adjust select concepts. As of 2020, we compute "continuing claims" for census regions and divisions by aggregating state-level data.

Each week, the prior week's initial claims and continued claims are revised based on a second reporting by states that reflect the claimants by state of residence.

Concurrent with the annual implementation and release of new seasonal factors outlined above, ETA incorporates revisions to the UI claims historical series caused by updates to the unadjusted data.

Alternative data sources

Unemployment insurance programs are administered by the individual state departments of labor, which report their own data. These can be aggregated to a weekly U.S. national figure. For purposes of analysis and commentary, this is the approach taken by Moody's Analytics during the 2025 federal government shutdown.

Further reading

Office of Unemployment Insurance:

• Weekly claims report (dead link)

U.S. Department of Labor:

• Homepage
• News release: Unemployment insurance weekly claims (latest week, pdf)
• News release: Unemployment insurance weekly claims (25 Sep 2025, pdf)

U.S. Employment and Training Administration:

• Homepage
• Unemployment insurance
• Short-Time Compensation (STC)
• Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program
• Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program

Iowa State University:

• Covered employment (dead link)

Moody's Anaytics Economic View:

• Jobless claims

• Apr 2005 - Initial version.
• 28 Oct 2025 - Phillip Thorne - Alternative data sources, Further reading.