Weekly unemployment claims rise

New claims for unemployment benefits topped 1.4 million last week, above the 1.3 million workers who filed claims in the preceding two weeks, according to data from the Labor Department. Concerns have been raised that employers who received a temporary respite as a result of the Paycheck Protection Program are seeing those funds exhausted and find themselves in a position where they may not be able to keep employees on staff. “It might be that businesses are running through their first line of credit and now they’re facing the music of an economy that has recovered a little bit but nearly enough,” said Ernie Tedeschi, a policy economist at Evercore ISI.