What Unemployment Insurance Claims Can — and Cannot — Tell Us

Fewer people are losing their jobs: New claims for unemployment benefits are down, while the workforce covered by unemployment benefits has grown by 13 million since 2022. People aren't leaving the benefit rolls faster: The weekly exit rate has been flat near 11.7 percent since early 2025 — which is a quarter below its 2022 level — and a typical insurance spell now runs 8.2 weeks versus 6.5 weeks in 2022. The recent decline in continuing claims is not necessarily evidence of a recovering labor market. It is explained almost entirely by fewer arrivals, not faster exits. And the share of claimants leaving because they ran out of benefits (rather than because they found work) has more than doubled, from 3.3 percent of all exits in 2022 to 7.3 percent over the 12 months through June 2026.