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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A total of 730,000 Americans filed for unemployment assistance for the week that ended Feb. 20, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday. The amount of initial jobless claims exceeded the 845,000 figure that economists surveyed by Dow Jones predicted and is a decrease from last week’s revised amount of 841,000. The four-week moving average declined to 807,750 claims, a 20,500 decrease from the revised average for the previous four weeks. Continuing claims, for which data lags a week, decreased to a little above 4.4 million. CNBC reports that the continuing claims number is the lowest since the pandemic started.