Nearly 5 million now collecting unemployment[SIZE=-1]Nearly 5 million Americans who have been laid off are now collecting unemployment benefits, according to new statistics from the Labor Department.
With a weekly increase of 170,000, there were 4,987,000 people receiving benefits in the week ending February 7, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
The number of people filed new claims for unemployment was 627,000 for the week ending February 14, remaining steady from the week before. But that was still more than the 620,000 claims economists expected.
From the Associated Press:
The continuing claims figure also was significantly above the year-ago level of 2.77 million and underscored the difficulty people are having in this recession finding another job once they are laid off.
An additional 1.5 million people are receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program approved by Congress last year, bringing the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits to 6.54 million for the week ending Feb. 7.
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