Obama adviser: Jobless claims spike related to …

WASHINGTON—One of President Obama's top economic advisers said that an unexpected spike in weekly jobless claims announced on Tuesday is yet another sign that the 10-day-old partial government shutdown is taking its toll on the economy.

For the week ending October 5, the number of people applying for unemployment insurance in the country jumped by 66,000 to 374,000, according to the Department of Labor. About half of the claims came from California—where computer issues half delayed processing of older claims but about 25% of the increase reflected applications from employees at government contractors.

Federal workers who have been furloughed by the government shutdown are eligible for unemployment benefits, but those figures won't be reflected in the government data until next week. Still, Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said that the new data suggests that the government shutdown—along with uncertainty about whether Congress will vote to raise the country's debt limit set to hit on Oct. 17—are having a "substantial impact" on private sector confidence.

"My very strong hunch is that we are seeing confidence going down," Furman told reporters at an event hosted by the liberal group Center for American Progress in Washington. "This has to be effecting business decisions about whether to hire."

House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday announced that he would seek a temporary deal to raise the debt ceiling by six weeks to avert a default.

Furman would not say if the White House would agree to go along with such an arrangement, but stated plainly that White House believes "longer is better."

"The Senate has a plan to do it for a year," Furman said. "That's better for certainty. That is better for everything. We didn't negotiate in January and give any concessions in exchange for it. We are not negotiating now. And so whatever debt limit increase they pass we're not negotiating that either. They will have established a track rec! ord of raising the debt limit without negotiating and without getting concessions and getting ransom for it. And we will have further established that track record, and we'll back in the same place in whatever amount of time from now. And our position will be exactly the same."

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In November 2012, the U.S. ran a deficit of $172 billion by