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 9/11, and analysts predicted that it would be revised even higher once states catch up with processing a flood of claims. Meanwhile, consumer inflation surged by 0.5 percent in August as energy prices shot up by the largest amount in more than two years, even before Katrina hit at the end of the month. The
