# Initial Jobless Claims Fall to 189,000, Tying the Lowest Reading Since 1969, Breitbart Reports

Breitbart says the weekly count for the end of October dropped by 6,000. The four-week average is 194,750, down 13.6 percent from a year ago. Continuing claims ticked up 23,000 in the latest week but remain lower than a year earlier.

- Section: [Economy](https://rightnewsrightnow.com/economy/)
- Published: 2026-11-05
- By: RightNewsRightNow Staff
- Canonical page: https://rightnewsrightnow.com/articles/jobless-claims-fall-189000-tie-lowest-since-1969-four-week-average-194750-continuing-claims-breitbart/

New layoff claims are at their lowest level in decades, Breitbart reports.

The headline number. Breitbart's John Carney writes that initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped by 6,000 to 189,000 in the final week of October. That ties the July 18 reading, which Breitbart says was the lowest since 1969.

The trend. The four-week average, which economists use to judge the underlying direction, fell to 194,750 from 225,500 a year ago, a decline of 13.6 percent. Breitbart says that matches the end-of-September reading, also the lowest since 1969.

The comparison. Initial claims averaged 217,712 in 2019, and the lowest single week that year was 196,000. Breitbart puts it this way: over the past month the country has averaged fewer new claims than it saw in the best week of 2019. The year-to-date average through Oct. 31 is 208,068 a week. Of the first 44 weeks of each year in the Labor Department series, which starts in 1967, Breitbart says only 1968 and 1969 had fewer claims.

Continuing claims. In the week ended Oct. 24, 1.718 million people were claiming another week of benefits, up 23,000 from the week before and 244,000 fewer than a year earlier. The share of covered workers collecting benefits fell from 1.3 percent to 1.1 percent over that span.

Why it matters here. The low claims figure measures how many people are losing jobs, not how easy it is to find one or whether paychecks cover the bills. Voters who told pollsters this week that cost of living was their top worry were describing prices, not layoffs, and this number does not speak to that. We have carried the Republican arguments over that gap.

What we could not check. We read Breitbart's write-up, not the Labor Department release. Breitbart does not say whether the figures are seasonally adjusted, and we did not check the historical series. Weekly claims are often revised.

## Source

Original reporting: [Breitbart](https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/11/05/jobless-claims-fall-to-57-year-low-of-189000/)