[naviga:h3]Number seeking jobless benefits hits 50-year low[/naviga:h3]

WASHINGTON — The fewest number of people in nearly 50 years sought unemployment benefits last week, a sign of a strong job market and an unusually low level of layoffs.

Yet the decline in applications for jobless aid isn’t due solely to a tight employment picture. Many states have imposed stricter rules on their unemployment insurance programs — from making it harder to qualify to reducing the duration of benefits to cutting payouts.

The combined effect has been to reduce the number of unemployed people who apply for and receive aid, economists say.

Nationwide, just 30 percent of people out of work now receive unemployment insurance, down from about 40 percent before the Great Recession.

[naviga:h3]Rite Aid to cut number of shares[/naviga:h3]

Rite Aid will chop its share count by about 95 percent in a bid to push the remaining shares above minimum trading requirements on the New York Stock Exchange.

The board of the struggling drugstore chain approved a 1-for-20 ratio for a reverse stock split after shareholders backed the plan last month. That will cut the total number of outstanding shares from nearly 1.1 billion, to about 54 million.

Rite Aid shares slid below $1 in December, prompting a removal warning from the NYSE. The drugstore chain said Wednesday after markets closed that on April 22, its shares will start trading on a split-adjusted basis.