Unemployment filings at more than 2-month high

About 428,000 Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- First-time unemployment claims rose again last week, reflecting a job market that is still struggling to get on a consistent road to recovery.

About 428,000 Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week, up from a revised 417,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It marked the highest level of new claims since late June.

Since April, initial claims have chopped around 400,000, a level economists often say indicates hiring is still too weak to bring down the unemployment rate, which is currently at 9.1%.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting initial claims to fall to 410,000 in the latest week.

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Continuing claims -- which include people filing for the second week of benefits or more -- fell 12,000 to 3.7 million in the week ended Sept. 3, the most recent data available.

Last week, President Obama renewed his push for Congress to once again extend federal unemployment benefits, which are currently set to expire at the beginning of 2012.

Unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million Americans out of poverty in 2010, according to a census report issued earlier this week.