Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance probably jumped to the highest in more than three years last week as people thrown out of work by Hurricane Katrina sought benefits, economists said ahead of a government report today.

Claims probably rose to 450,000 for the week ended Sept. 17 from 398,000 the previous week, according to the median forecast of 36 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. That would be the most new claims since March 2002.

A separate report today from the Conference Board is expected to show that the index of leading economic indicators dropped in August as soaring fuel costs caused consumer sentiment to slump. Energy prices have jumped again in the last two days as a second hurricane, Rita, threatens to disrupt fuel production in the Gulf of Mexico. Rising energy costs may slow hiring and business investment, sapping economic growth.

``The worry is that business confidence is also going to fall off now that everyone is having to pay more for oil,'' said Tim Rogers, chief economist at Briefing.com in Boston. ``High oil prices can really take a bite out of what was a strong and stable economy.''

The Labor Department's report on claims is due at 8:30 a.m. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast claims ranging from 325,000 to 550,000. Before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, claims averaged 324,000 a week this year.

About 84,000 claims from workers displaced by Katrina had been filed as of the week ended Sept. 10, according to the Labor Department. Disruptions caused by Katrina and now Rita, which threatens the Texas coast and Louisiana, will probably add to the rolls of new applicants for jobless benefits for several weeks, economists said.

Migration

Claims are one of 10 components of the Conference Board's leading economic indicators index. The New York-based research group is expected to report at 10 a.m. that its index fell 0.3 percent in August, the first decline since March, according to the survey median. The measure is designed to signal how the economy will perform in the next three to six months.

Louisiana's labor department processed 142,255 claims between Aug. 31 and Sept. 16, spokesman Ed Pratt said. Before the hurricane, the state typically handled 3,000 new claims a week.

States across the U.S. may be processing more claims than normal as former residents of Louisiana either permanently relocate or need help filing where they have been evacuated. Texas, which borders Louisiana, has entered more than 50,000 claims into Louisiana's unemployment system and hired temporary workers to help process the overflow, Louisiana Department of Labor spokeswoman Anne Hatchitt said.

Questions about how quickly claims are being filed and what criteria are being used make it hard to know when the figures will peak, economists including Briefing.com's Rogers said.

Hurricane Rita

``There's a tremendous amount of uncertainty out there,'' Rogers said. ``Who gets to the office? How do they get to the office? How many people were kept on the payrolls despite the fact the office or shop closed? When it drowns an entire city you're in a whole other ball game.''

In addition, if Hurricane Rita follows the path projected, it could hit Texas by Sept. 24 and not only put more people out of work but also further drive up the price of oil and gas.

Katrina pushed gasoline prices to a record, hurt confidence among U.S. consumers, investors and executives and led economists to lower their third-quarter growth forecasts.

The jump in claims and a further deterioration in consumer sentiment this month suggest the leading index will drop again in September, economists said. The University of Michigan's preliminary sentiment index fell this month to the lowest in 13 years, a report last week showed. It was the sharpest drop since December 1980.

Jobs Lost

The university's measure of consumers' views on the economy's future slumped 12.2 points this month on top of a 8.6- point drop in August as fuel prices soared even before Katrina formed.

The jump in claims and the plunge in consumer expectations combined may shave roughly 1 percentage point from the leading index this month, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The economy may grow at a 3.6 percent annual pace this quarter, economists surveyed by Bloomberg News earlier this month said. In August, they said they expected growth from July through September to be 4.1 percent.

Katrina may cost the economy 400,000 jobs and a percentage point of lost growth in the second half of the year, according to the latest estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

``Things were really moving along very nicely'' before Katrina struck, Paul Sarvadi, chief executive of Administaff Inc., a Kingwood, Texas-based provider of personnel services, said in a Sept. 13 interview. ``The thing we have to be concerned about, of course, is the way that gasoline prices have spiked, and hopefully that won't stay there forever. But we have yet to see the real economic impact there.''

Bloomberg Survey

FIRM                     Jobless    LEI
                  Claims
----------------------------------------
Number of replies           35       54
MEDIAN                     450     -0.3%
AVERAGE                    455     -0.3%
High Forecast              550      0.1%
Low Forecast               325     -0.4%
Previous                   398      0.1%
----------------------------------------
ABN Amro                   450      0.0%
4CAST Ltd.                 450     -0.3%
Action Economics           395     -0.4%
Argus Research Corp.       n/a     -0.3%
BNP Paribas                n/a     -0.2%
B of A Capital             450     -0.4%
B of A Securities          n/a     -0.2%
Bantleon Bank AG           n/a     -0.3%
Barclays Capital           500      n/a
Bank of Tokyo- Mitsub.     n/a     -0.3%
Briefing.com               450     -0.3%
CantorViewpoint            464     -0.3%
Citigroup                  550     -0.2%
Claymore Advisors          n/a     -0.3%
Commerzbank                500     -0.2%
Credit Suisse FB           450     -0.3%
Daiwa Securities           n/a     -0.3%
DekaBank                   n/a     -0.2%
Deutsche Bank Research     500     -0.3%
Deutsche PostBank          n/a     -0.3%
Dresdner Kleinwort         n/a     -0.2%
Exane                      400     -0.1%
FTN Financial              n/a     -0.3%
Goldman Sachs              n/a     -0.1%
High Frequency Economics   450     -0.2%
HSBC Markets               430     -0.3%
HypoVereinsbank            425     -0.3%
I.D.E.A.                   425     -0.3%
ING Financial Markets      n/a     -0.3%
Informa Global Markets     410      0.1%
Insight Economics          450     -0.3%
IntesaBci                  n/a     -0.3%
J.P. Morgan                500     -0.3%
JPMorgan Asset Mg          410     -0.2%
Landesbank BW              n/a     -0.2%
Lehman Brothers            415     -0.3%
Macroeconomic              550     -0.3%
Merrill Lynch              440     -0.2%
Mizuho Securities          475      n/a
Morgan Keegan              n/a     -0.3%
Morgan Stanley             n/a     -0.4%
National Bank Financial    n/a     -0.1%
National City Bank         n/a      0.1%
Nesbitt Burns BMO          455     -0.3%
Nomura                     n/a     -0.3%
Nord/LB                    390     -0.3%
Nykredit                   n/a     -0.3%
PNC Bank                   n/a     -0.3%
RBS Greenwich Capital      n/a     -0.2%
Ried, Thunberg & Co.       500      n/a
Scotia Capital             500     -0.4%
Societe Generale           325      n/a
Stone & McCarthy           450     -0.4%
Thomson/IFR                550     -0.4%
Tullett Prebon             460     -0.4%
UBS Securities LLC         450     -0.4%
Wells Fargo                n/a     -0.4%
Westpac Banking            450     -0.2%
Wrightson                  450      n/a

To contact the reporter on this story: Courtney Schlisserman in Washington cschlisserma@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 22, 2005 00:04 EDT