NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - New weekly claims for jobless benefits in the United States dipped last week, the government said Thursday, but were higher than expected and stayed above the benchmark 400,000 level, as the labor market struggled to recover from heavy job cuts last year.

The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to 424,000 in the week ended Sept. 14 from an upwardly revised 433,000 the prior week. Economists, on average, expected 415,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com.

It was the fourth straight week in which the number of claims exceeded 400,000, a benchmark level indicating weakness in the labor market.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said housing starts fell 2.2 percent in August to an annual rate of 1.609 million units after falling 2.7 percent in July. Economists, on average, expected housing starts to rise to a 1.67 million-unit pace, according to Briefing.com.

The reports contributed to a decline in U.S. stock prices, while Treasury bond prices rose.

The four-week moving average of new jobless claims, which smoothes out fluctuations in the weekly data, rose to 418,500 last week from a revised 411,250 the prior week.

"We've actually begun to edge up on the four-week moving average ... from [about] 380,000 to [about] 420,000, which brings into question the future sustainability of spending, particularly in the retail sector," Lawrence Goodman, chief economist at Globalecon LLC, told CNNfn's CNNmoney Morning.

Continued claims, the number of people drawing benefits for more than a week, rose to 3.615 million in the week ended Sept. 7, the latest data available, from a revised 3.544 million the prior week.

Earlier this month, the Labor Department reported that the nation's unemployment rate dipped to 5.7 percent, news that cheered some on Wall Street but was received skeptically by some economists.

Most economists think unemployment -- which is a lagging economic indicator, often rising even as the economy improves -- could rise above 6 percent before the labor market fully recovers.

U.S. businesses cut more than 1.5 million jobs during a recession that began in March 2001, and lately have been able to get more production out of fewer workers, making them reluctant to increase hiring until they see a need to greatly expand production.