THE ECONOMY

Key Indicator Shows Jobless Drop: The government released weekly jobless figures that show substantial improvement in a key employment measure. Although the Labor Department said the number of Americans filing for state unemployment claims rose 8,000 to 332,000 in the last week, the running four-week average that is viewed by experts as a better gauge fell 4.5% to 331,500 claims for the four weeks ended Aug. 21, from 347,250 the previous week. In another positive sign, the Labor Department said 2.78 million people filed for continued state benefits in the week ended Aug. 14--the latest period for which the data is available--down 33,000 from the previous week.