* PBS News…

Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, lowering claims to 900,000, still a historically high level that points to further job cuts in a raging pandemic.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday underscored that President Joe Biden has inherited an economy that faltered this winter as virus cases spiked, cold weather restricted dining and federal rescue aid expired. The government said that 5.1 million Americans are continuing to receive state jobless benefits, down from 5.2 million in the previous week. That signals that fewer people who are out of work are finding jobs.

New viral infections have begun to slow after months of relentless increases, though they remain high and are averaging about 200,000 a day. The number of deaths in the United States from the pandemic that erupted 10 months ago has surpassed 400,000.

Economists say one factor that likely increased jobless claims in the past two weeks is a government financial aid package that was signed into law in late December. Among other things, it provided a $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit on top of regular state jobless aid. The new benefit, which runs through mid-March, may be encouraging more Americans to apply for jobless benefits.

* CBS 2…

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 108,892 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of Jan 11 in Illinois, according to the DOL’s weekly claims report released Thursday. […]

There were 94,944 new unemployment claims filed during the week of Jan. 4 in Illinois.

There were 45,387 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of Dec. 27 in Illinois.

There were 110,486 claims filed in Illinois the week of Dec. 20.

There were 145,054 new unemployment claims filed across the state, the week of Dec. 13.

Illinois reported 138,359 unemployment claims during the week of Dec. 6.