US WEEKLY JOBLESS CLAIMS HIT 1.5-M; 44-M AMERICANS IDLED IN 12 WEEKS

US jobless claims for the week that ended Saturday totaled 1.5 million, the Labor Department said Thursday. That fell slightly short of the median economist estimate Carmen Reinicke wrote for Business Insider on June 11, 2020.

That brought the 12-week total to 44 million. Thursday's report also marked the 10th straight week of declining claims.

Continuing claims, which represent the aggregate total of people receiving unemployment benefits, totaled 20.9 million for the week that ended May 30. Millions more Americans filed for unemployment insurance last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to spur layoffs across the nation.

It's also more than the roughly 37 million people who filed unemployment-insurance claims during the year and a half of the Great Recession.