How an error in US jobless claims inflated one state's numbers by nearly 270,000 — an accidental tenfold increase

• Thursday's weekly US jobless claims report stated that Connecticut had 298,680 claims for the week ending May 9, a whopping 726% increase in just seven days.
• A few hours later, the Connecticut Department of Labor tweeted that the number was an error and the state really had 29,846 intial jobless claims that week.
• The mistake was the result of a "data entry reporting error," a spokesperson told Bloomberg.
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An error in this week's US weekly jobless claims report shows the importance of revisions.

Eagle-eyed economists noticed it almost right away — Thursday's weekly US jobless claims report stated that Connecticut had 298,680 claims for the week ending May 9.

It stood out for a few reasons. The first is that Connecticut had 36,138 claims in the prior week, meaning that Thursday's number was a whopping 726% increase in just seven days.

The second is that it put Connecticut at the top of the chart — the Thursday number was the highest in the nation, beating out other larger states such as New York, California, and Pennsylvania.

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A few hours later, the Connecticut Department of Labor set the record straight — the lofty jobless claims number was an error, it said.

"#USDOL May 14 report shows CT with 298,680 initial UI claims filed. Correct number is 29,846," the state department of labor said in a tweet.

A spokesperson for the department told Bloomberg that a "data entry reporting error" led to the discrepancy.

That means that the total initial jobless claims in the week ending May 9 may be revised from the nearly 3 million reported Thursday in the next report.