US weekly jobless claims shoot up to 332,000 in first week after federal boost's expiration

• Weekly jobless claims jumped to 332,000 in the first week since boosted unemployment benefits lapsed.
• Economists expected claims to rise to 330,000 last week.
• Continuing claims fell to 2.67 million for the week that ended September 4, below estimates.

Filings for unemployment insurance shot up last week, the first week after enhanced federal unemployment benefits lapsed.

Jobless claims totaled an unadjusted 332,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That came in just above the median economist forecast of 330,000 claims. It also snapped a two-week streak of declines and placed claims just above pandemic-era lows.

The prior week's total was revised to 312,000 from 310,000.

Continuing claims, which track Americans receiving unemployment benefits, slid to 2.67 million for the week that ended September 4. That compares to a median forecast of 2.74 million claims.

Last week was the first since the federal boost to UI payments expired on September 6. The government had been supplementing benefits with a $300-per-week expansion since Democrats passed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package in March. The expiration cut benefits for roughly 7.5 million Americans, and while the Biden administration has said states can repurpose stimulus funds for extended benefits, no state government told Insider that it plans to do so.

Hope for a renewed supplement isn't entirely lost. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday said she will introduce a bill that would extend federal UI programs until February 2022. Though it's unlikely such legislation will see passage, the representative said she "simply could not allow this to happen" without trying to revive the programs.

"I've been very disappointed on both sides of the aisle that we've just simply allowed pandemic unemployment assistance to completely lapse, when we are clearly not fully recovered from the consequences of the pandemic," Ocasio-Cortez added in a statement.

In other economic news, retail sales rose 0.7% in August as the Delta wave intensified and some restrictions were put back in place. Consumer spending counts for roughly 70% of US economic activity, and while sales still sit below their April highs, the unexpected August gain suggests the recovery was stayed intact despite the virus's resurgence.