Slightly more Americans applied for state unemployment benefits in the week ended Sept. 19 than in the prior week. Jobless claims rose 4,000 to 870,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Claims in the prior week were raised by 6,000 to 866,000. The number of people already collecting economic benefits, known as continuing claims fell 167,000 to 12.58 million. These claims are reported with a one-week lag. This is the lowest level of continued claims since mid-April. Jobless claims have been drifting lower lately. Roughly half of the 22 million payroll jobs that were lost in March and April have been regained as people return to work. The prospects for this trend to continue are mixed and economists say high unemployment will remain a problem for at least a couple of years. The Labor Department’s weekly unemployment claims report did showed a significant drop in the total number of people claiming benefits across all unemployment programs, including several emergency programs that extend benefits. That number fell by 3.7 million to 26 million in the week ending September 5th.