WASHINGTON—The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits declined to 779,000 last week, a still-historically high total that shows that a sizable number of people keep losing jobs to the viral pandemic.
Last week’s total dropped from 812,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Feb. 4, and is the lowest in two months. Still, before the virus erupted in the United States in March of last year, weekly applications for jobless aid had never topped 700,000, even during the Great Recession.
