The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week. For the week ended March 4, initial jobless claims rose by 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000, according to the Labor Department statistics published Thursday.

Read on for a breakdown of the report.

Also read: Top economist El-Erian urges caution over consensus call for “short and shallow” recession

• The forward seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2% for the week ended February 25; that’s an increase of 0.1 percentage point from last week’s unrevised rate.
• The advance figure for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ended February 25 was 1,718,000; a rise of 69,000 from last week’s revised level.
• Previous week’s level was revised down 6k to 1.649m from 1.655m.
• The four-week moving average was about 1.68 million, up 9,500 from the previous week’s revised average.
• The previous week’s average has been revised down 1,500 from 1.672 million to 1.67 million.

Uncleaned data

• The total unadjusted number of actual initial claims under government programs for the week ended March 4 was 237,513.
• That’s an increase of 35,357 (or 17.5%) from the previous week.
• In the comparison week of 2022, there were 219,875 initial applications.
• The pre-unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.4% for the week ended February 25, up 0.1 percentage point from the previous week.
• The pre-unadjusted number of insured unemployed in state programs was more than 1.9 million; an increase of 83,404 (or 4.4%) from the previous week.

Why it matters: The report follows the Fed chairman Jerome Powell‘s testimony before Congress this week about a possible new rate hike of 0.5% Later this month.

The goal, Powell said, is “cool” the economy.

in one blog entry Tuesday, Robert Reichformer Secretary of Labor bill clintoncriticized the approach, stating that there was…