Americans See Historic Job Security as Jobless Claims Fall Near All-Time Lows

Initial claims for jobless benefits remain near historic lows, and continuing claims fell to the lowest level in two years, indicating a level of job security with little precedent in the modern era.

The number of new claims for state unemployment benefits inched up last week to 210,000, up by 5,000 from the prior week. The four-week moving average of claims, a measure economists see as a better guide to the health of the labor market, dipped to 210,500, a decline of 250.

In data going back to 1967, the four-week average of new claims has only been this low or lower five percent of the time, in 170 of the 3,086 weeks during those decades.

The all-time low was in 1969, when claims fell to 179,000. But the workforce was much smaller then and many young Americans were serving in the Vietnam War, depressing the labor supply.

Compared with