The US four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance was almost unchanged last week at 269,250, edging down only 250 from the previous week’s unrevised average, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released today by the US Department of Labor.

The four-week moving average decreases the volatility of the weekly numbers. Total initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended June 11 were 277,000, up 13,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level.

Despite the increase, this marks 67 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973.

No special factors affected this week’s initial claims.

Bloomberg reports initial jobless claims increased more than expected last week, reflecting a jump in California that otherwise masked steady progress in the US labor market. Initial claims rose more than the median forecast in its survey of economists, which called for initial claims to rise to 270,000.

“As long as the trend for jobless claims remains low, that suggests that businesses are still relatively confident about the economic outlook,” Ryan Wang, an economist at HSBC Securities USA Inc., told Bloomberg. Wang’s forecast was among the closest in the Bloomberg survey. “We need to see claims above the 300,000 level before we would be concerned about a genuine deterioration in the labor market.”