ECONOMY
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Jobless Claims Inch Up: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits edged up in early August, the government reported. The Labor Department said that for the week ending Aug. 3, there were 408,000 Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits, an increase of 8,000 over the previous week’s mark of 400,000. The jobless claims number can be extremely volatile from week to week, and analysts hesitate to read too much into a one-week movement.
