State jobless to lose $300 benefit in June

Unemployed Arkansans currently getting $300 a week from the federal supplemental unemployment assistance program will lose that benefit next month, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday.

Hutchinson has directed the Workforce Services Division to end Arkansas’ participation in the program after June 26, according to a news release from his office.

“The programs were implemented to assist the unemployed during the pandemic when businesses were laying off employees and jobs were scarce,” Hutchinson said. “As we emerge from covid-19, retail and service companies, restaurants and industry are attempting to return to pre-pandemic levels, but employees are as scarce today as jobs were a year ago.”

The $300-a-week federal payments on top of state unemployment benefits “helped thousands of Arkansans make it through this tough time, so it served a good purpose,” Hutchinson said. “Now we need Arkansans back on the job so that we can get our economy back to full speed.”

The federal program has been criticized as essentially paying people not to work.

The governors of Montana and South Carolina opted out of the program earlier this week.