After a spike in new unemployment claims in Maryland earlier this month, initial claims fell last week. New claims were up in both D.C. and Virginia.
Even so, nearly 31,000 Maryland residents filed first time claims for unemployment benefits during the week ending Jan. 23. New claims in the District totaled almost 2,200 and nearly 22,000 in Virginia.
Nationwide, initial jobless claims continued to ease, with 847,000 new filings, 67.000 fewer than the previous week. The number of Americans continuing to get standard unemployment benefits fell below 5 million for the first time since the pandemic began, totaling 4.77 million last week, down 203,000 from the previous week.
Initial unemployment filings on an unadjusted basis, excluding seasonal factors, totaled 873,966.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits, unadjusted, for D.C., Maryland and Virginia during the week ending Jan. 23:
District of Columbia:
Week ending Jan. 23: 2,186
Week ending Jan. 16: 1,574
Maryland:
Week ending Jan. 23: 30,517
Week ending Jan. 16: 31,019
Virginia:
Week ending Jan. 23: 21,599
Week ending Jan. 16: 21,073
The Department of Labor posts weekly initial unemployment claims by state online.
