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Jobless Claims Jump After Katrina

POSTED: 10:23 am PDT September 15, 2005
UPDATED: 10:36 am PDT September 15, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A total of 68,000 Americans who lost their jobs due to Hurricane Katrina filed for unemployment benefits last week, pushing these applications up by the largest amount in nearly a decade.

The Labor Department reported that claims for benefits rose by 71,000 last week, with 68,000 of that total attributed to layoffs due to Katrina.

That figure exceeded the claims filed in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, and analysts predicted that it would be revised even higher once states catch up with processing a flood of claims.

Meanwhile, the government detailed Thursday the recent surge in retail-level inflation, with energy as the culprit.

The Labor Department said consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month, fueled by the biggest spike in energy prices in over two years. Gasoline prices alone jumped 8 percent during the month.

That was before Hurricane Katrina hit, when damage to oil and natural gas facilities in the Gulf Coast produced a further price shock.

If there's good news to be found in the report, it is that the core Consumer Price Index was up just 0.1 percent.

That suggests outside food and energy, inflation remains somewhat subdued, so far.