RJ and Makay

Only a week after revealing that jobless benefit claims had fallen to their lowest level in nearly three years, the Labor Department says benefit applications have taken a turn for the worse, rising substantially since its previous report. At about 410,000, the number of applications since that report was an increase of 25,000 and somewhat more than economists expected.

The prior week's big drop in jobless claims to 385,000 — the fewest since July 2008 — was attributed mainly to bad weather that kept people from applying. While economists had been predicted a rebound from that level as the weather improved, the consensus was for claims to rise only to around 400,000.