Two Cheers for Lower Jobless Claims – The Wall Street Journal

Are fewer people filing for unemployment because the job market is getting better? Or is it because filing isn’t as worthwhile as before?

The Labor Department on Thursday reported that the number of people filing new unemployment-insurance claims in the week ended Saturday fell to a seasonally adjusted 963,000, dropping below the one million mark for the first time in months. That is still extremely elevated—the highest that jobless claims reached following the 2008 financial crisis was 665,000—but it is vastly better than…