An “initial claim” is a person’s first application for unemployment insurance after losing a job; it counts new people entering the system that week and is often used to measure new layoffs (“emerging unemployment”).
“Continued weeks claimed” (or “continued claims” / “insured unemployment”) counts weeks of benefits claimed by people who have already filed an initial claim and remain unemployed—each person is counted once for each week they claim, so it measures the ongoing number of people receiving UI benefits, not new job losses.
“Seasonally adjusted” means statisticians have removed the effects of regular, predictable patterns—such as holidays, school schedules, and weather-related slowdowns—from the raw (“unadjusted”) claims data so changes from week to week better reflect real shifts in unemployment rather than normal seasonal swings.
Because seasonal adjustment scales the raw counts up or down using historical seasonal patterns, the seasonally adjusted numbers will differ from the unadjusted counts even though they describe the same underlying claims for that week.
In this report, “advance” claims are the preliminary weekly figures based on fast reports (ETA‑538) that states send shortly after the week ends, so the government can publish near‑real‑time data.
Previous weeks are later labeled “revised” because (1) states submit late or corrected data that update the unadjusted counts, and (2) once a year ETA and BLS revise the seasonal‑adjustment factors and apply them to the historical series, which can slightly change earlier seasonally adjusted numbers.
The insured unemployment rate (IUR) is calculated as:
IUR = (number of workers receiving regular state unemployment insurance benefits in a given week ÷ number of workers in jobs covered by that insurance) × 100.
So an insured unemployment rate of 1.2% means that about 1.2 out of every 100 workers whose jobs are covered by regular state UI were actually drawing benefits that week. This is narrower than the overall unemployment rate because it only counts people both eligible for and claiming UI benefits.
A state is “on” the Extended Benefits (EB) program when its unemployment has been high for long enough to meet federally defined trigger thresholds:
• Mandatory trigger (all states must use): EB turns on—and up to 13 extra weeks of benefits become available—if the state’s 13‑week average insured unemployment rate (IUR) is at least 5.0% and at least 120% of the average IUR for the same 13‑week period in each of the prior two years. • Optional triggers (states may adopt in their laws): EB can also turn on if the IUR meets a higher threshold (e.g., 6.0%) or if the state’s 3‑month average total unemployment rate (TUR) exceeds specified levels (such as ≥6.5% and at least 110% of its average in the previous two years).
The weekly report notes when no state meets any of these conditions, so no state is “on” EB.
• UCFE (Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees) is a federal program that provides unemployment benefits to eligible former civilian employees of the U.S. federal government who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. States administer the claims as agents for the federal government, and federal agencies reimburse the benefit costs.
• UCX (Unemployment Compensation for Ex‑servicemembers) provides unemployment benefits to eligible former active‑duty military personnel (and some former NOAA uniformed members). It is also administered by states on behalf of the federal government, with benefits paid from military/NOAA funds rather than state UI taxes.
These programs appear in the weekly UI report as separate federal components alongside regular state unemployment insurance.
The weekly UI claims figures are produced by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) in the U.S. Department of Labor. ETA collects raw weekly claims from state unemployment‑insurance agencies and publishes the “Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims” news release and historical data.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not collect these data; it acts as ETA’s technical contractor for seasonal adjustment—BLS maintains the statistical models and seasonal factors that ETA applies to the raw data before releasing the seasonally adjusted series.
Policymakers and the public use weekly claims as a high‑frequency barometer of labor‑market conditions: initial claims show new layoffs (“emerging unemployment”), and continued claims show how many people remain on UI. These series are used alongside (not instead of) BLS’s monthly unemployment and payroll reports to assess the economy and guide policy decisions.