Another 1.5 Million Workers Have Filed For Unemployment

The Labor Department released it figures for new unemployment claims for the week ending June 6th. It showed that another 1.542 million have filed for unemployment. That brings the total for the last 12 weeks to 44,188,000 -- about 27.9% of the civilian workforce (158,227,000).

Here is the official announcement from the Labor Department:

In the week ending June 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 1,542,000, a decrease of 355,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 20,000 from 1,877,000 to 1,897,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,002,000, a decrease of 286,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 4,250 from 2,284,000 to 2,288,250.