Jobless Claims (4-wk avg)
4-Week Moving Average of Initial Claims
The number, plainly.
The four-week moving average of initial unemployment claims, the smoothed labor trend.
Higher, lower, and what each means.
Cuts through the weekly noise; a rising trend is an early crack in the labor market.
A reading is not a verdict. The Scan phase of Woodring’s Loop collects the signal; the Story phase asks what futures it is consistent with, and only the Stake phase turns that into a decision. This page does the first part.
The line in your 2027 plan.
Tests: whether the labor backdrop the plan assumed is drifting, one week at a time.
Write the assumption down, name the reading that would break it, and put a date on when it has to be argued again. That is the 18-Month Sunset applied to one line of a budget. The Last Annual Planshows what this season’s moves have already done to the common ones.
The last 36 readings.
Most recent first. Every value is as published by FRED at the time of the last refresh; FRED revises some series after the fact.
| Date | Value | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 31, 2026 | 194,750 | −1.1% |
| Oct 24, 2026 | 197,000 | −0.5% |
| Oct 17, 2026 | 198,000 | −0.4% |
| Oct 10, 2026 | 198,750 | +0.3% |
| Oct 3, 2026 | 198,250 | −1.1% |
| Sep 26, 2026 | 200,500 | −1.0% |
| Sep 19, 2026 | 202,500 | −0.7% |
| Sep 12, 2026 | 204,000 | −1.1% |
| Sep 5, 2026 | 206,250 | −0.6% |
| Aug 29, 2026 | 207,500 | +0.9% |
| Aug 22, 2026 | 205,750 | +0.7% |
| Aug 15, 2026 | 204,250 | +2.3% |
| Aug 8, 2026 | 199,750 | +0.4% |
| Aug 1, 2026 | 199,000 | −2.1% |
| Jul 25, 2026 | 203,250 | −2.3% |
| Jul 18, 2026 | 208,000 | −3.1% |
| Jul 11, 2026 | 214,750 | −2.1% |
| Jul 4, 2026 | 219,250 | −1.5% |
| Jun 27, 2026 | 222,500 | −0.9% |
| Jun 20, 2026 | 224,500 | +0.4% |
| Jun 13, 2026 | 223,500 | +1.9% |
| Jun 6, 2026 | 219,250 | +2.1% |
| May 30, 2026 | 214,750 | +3.1% |
| May 23, 2026 | 208,250 | +2.7% |
| May 16, 2026 | 202,750 | −0.6% |
| May 9, 2026 | 204,000 | +0.5% |
| May 2, 2026 | 203,000 | −2.3% |
| Apr 25, 2026 | 207,750 | −1.5% |
| Apr 18, 2026 | 211,000 | +0.5% |
| Apr 11, 2026 | 210,000 | +0.4% |
| Apr 4, 2026 | 209,250 | +0.6% |
| Mar 28, 2026 | 208,000 | −1.3% |
| Mar 21, 2026 | 210,750 | Unchanged |
| Mar 14, 2026 | 210,750 | −0.4% |
| Mar 7, 2026 | 211,500 | −2.0% |
| Feb 28, 2026 | 215,750 | — |
When Jobless Claims (4-wk avg) moves, know what it tests.
The monthly Signal Layer covers every series in the library: what moved, which planning assumptions it tests, and what a continuous-planning team does about it. One email a month. Unsubscribe in one click.
Where the number comes from.
4-Week Moving Average of Initial Claims (IC4WSA), retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IC4WSA. Refreshed daily; 120 readings on file from Jul 20, 2024 to Oct 31, 2026.
Predictive Planning Institute, Signal Library: Jobless Claims (4-wk avg) (IC4WSA). predictiveplanning.com/signals/IC4WSA. Data via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Value 194,750 as of Oct 31, 2026.