More Americans apply for jobless benefits

More Americans applied for jobless aid last week, but the total number of Americans collecting unemployment remains at a five-decade low.

Applications for unemployment benefits rose by 27,000 to 229,000 for the week ending Sunday, the most since mid-January, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Firsttime applications generally track the number of layoffs.

The four-week average for claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, rose by 8,000 from the previous week to 215,000.

The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits for the week ending May 28 remained unchanged from the previous week at 1,306,000, the fewest since Jan. 10, 1970.

American workers are enjoying historically strong job security two years after the coronavirus pandemic plunged the economy into a short but devastating recession. Weekly applications for unemployment aid have been consistently below the pre-pandemic level of 225,000 for most of 2022, even as the overall economy contracted in the first quarter and concerns over inflation persist.

Last week, the government reported that U.S. employers added 390,000 jobs in May, extending a streak of solid hiring that has bolstered an economy under pressure from high inflation and rising interest rates.

The job growth in May, though healthy, was the lowest monthly gain in a year. a fatal pulmonary embolism while on a flight from Oakland to John Wayne Airport on Sept. 19, 2014.

His family had filed a wrongful-death suit against Southwest and the flight crew, saying Ilczyszyn died because the crew failed to provide assistance.

Ilczyszyn was a prominent financial trader, the founder of iiTrader and a frequent contributor to CNBC’s “Futures Now.” He and his wife, Kelly, had a daughter — 9 at the time of his death — and he had a grown son and daughter from a previous marriage. Kelly had been a Southwest flight attendant for 15 years.

At the trial in 2019, witnesses for Southwest testified that it was unlikely Ilczyszyn could have survived even if the flight crew had been able to get to him. Southwest also claimed immunity under federal code because its employees were responding to a suspected security threat.