A ray of hope: New claims for benefits fell for the first time in a month.

WASHINGTON - New requests for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, the first decline in a month and a hopeful sign after a raft of recent negative economic reports.

New claims for jobless aid dropped 31,000 in the week ended Aug. 21 to a seasonally adjusted 473,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Still, claims remain much higher than they would be in a healthy economy.

In Pennsylvania, new claims for the latest week fell 2,074 - the third-largest drop in the nation. State officials attributed the decline to fewer layoffs in the food, industrial-machinery, and service industries.

The drop left Pennsylvania's total new claims at 252,870, the lowest since mid-June. Still, the total number of new claims before the recession began in December 2007 was 130,000 to 180,000 per week.

New claims rose in New Jersey in the latest week by 843, the third-largest increase for the week. State officials did not cite a reason. Claims totaled 170,674, compared with 100,000 to 112,000 before the recession.

These claims, also called initial claims, are filed by workers newly laid off and seeking unemployment benefits for the first time. The state figures are for the week that ended Aug. 14, one week behind the nationwide numbers.

Nationally, employers generally remain reluctant to hire as economic growth appears to be slowing again.

The drop in jobless claims last week followed a steep increase the previous three weeks that sent claims to their highest level in nine months. Those increases raised fears that businesses were starting to lay off more workers.

Even with last week's decline, the four-week national average, a less-volatile measure, rose to 486,750, the highest since November 2009.

The trend for claims "is consistent with a lackluster pace of job growth," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc., of St. Petersburg, Fla. "The private sector really hasn't recovered enough."

The Labor Department's report also said total unemployment-benefit rolls climbed steeply, as more people joined extended unemployment aid programs that Congress renewed last month. During the recession, Congress added up to 73 weeks of emergency aid on top of the 26 weeks typically provided by the states.

All told, about 10.1 million people were receiving unemployment checks in the week ended Aug. 7, the latest data available. That is up about 260,000 from the previous week. It's also about triple the number receiving benefits before the recession.

The extended program lapsed in June, throwing nearly two million people off the rolls. But since Congress renewed the program, the total benefit rolls have increased 2.2 million, according to Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. L.L.C.

That suggests "there is little, if any, meaningful hiring throughout the economy," Greenhaus wrote in a note to clients.

The economy has grown for four straight quarters. But the pace has slowed from a 5 percent annual rate in last year's fourth quarter to 3.7 percent in this year's first quarter. It has weakened even further in the last several months.

Initial jobless claims fell steadily last year as the economy began expanding, dropping from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009 to about 460,000 at the beginning of this year. After fluctuating around that level for most of this year, claims started climbing again last month.

In a healthy economy, claims generally fall below 400,000.