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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (527503)	1/21/2004 8:48:25 PM
From: Thehammer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

at least twice posthumously

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (527503)	1/22/2004 8:32:40 AM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

DJ US Jobless Claims -2: Second Consecutive Week Of Decline By Joseph Rebello OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The number of U.S. workers filing initial applications for unemployment benefits declined for a second week in a row last week, suggesting the jobs market is slowly recovering. Initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 341,000 in the week that ended Jan. 17, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week moving average, which smoothes out weekly fluctuations, fell by 3,250 to a three-year low of 344,500. The decline surprised Wall Street. According to a consensus forecast of economists surveyed by Dow Jones and CNBC, the number of initial claims had been expected to rise by 2,000. A Labor Department statistician said "no special factors" caused the drop. Economists believe the labor market is recovering - however gradually - from a three-year slump. Initial applications for unemployment benefits have remained below 400,000 for 16 consecutive weeks. Economists regard numbers below that threshold as evidence of an improving labor market. Federal Reserve policymakers, however, consider the pace of job growth much too slow, and have said they will be disinclined to raise interest rates until they see a much stronger labor-market recovery. The Fed's monetary-policy committee is scheduled to meet next week to decide the course of interest rates; it is widely expected to leave its key interest rate unchanged at 1%, a 46-year low. In its report Thursday, the Labor Department said the number of workers drawing unemployment benefits for more than a week rose in the week of Jan. 10, the latest period for which those statistics are available. Continuing claims rose by 17,000 to 3,143,000. The unemployment rate for workers with unemployment insurance held steady at 2.5%. In all, the Labor Department said, 45 states and territories reported an increase in unadjusted initial claims for the week of Jan. 10 while eight reported a decrease. Besides the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have unemployment-insurance programs that are included in the national tally. California reported the biggest increase in that week, a gain of 14,857 that it attributed to layoffs in the service industry and in agriculture. Kentucky reported the biggest decline, saying the number of claims fell by 4,223 because of fewer layoffs in the manufacturing industry. The Labor Department reduced its preliminary estimate of initial claims for the week of Jan. 10, cutting the number by 1,000 to 342,000. -By Joseph Rebello; Dow Jones Newswires; joseph.rebello@dowjones.com; 202-862-9279 (END) Dow Jones Newswires 01-22-04 0830ET