What States Are Ending Unemployment

State Government Plans To End Federal Unemployment Benefits Related To The Coronavirus Pandemic 2021

On May 4, 2021, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte became the first governor in the U.S. to announce his state would opt out of all federal unemployment benefit programs related to the coronavirus pandemic by June 30.

After Gianforte’s announcement, at least 25 additional states also announced plans to end enhanced federal unemployment benefits related to COVID-19. Twenty-five states that planned to end pandemic-related federal unemployment benefits had Republican governors. One state had a Democratic governor.

The American Rescue Plan, signed on March 11, 2021, extended federal unemployment benefit programs related to the coronavirus pandemic, including the federal government’s $300 per week add-on to state unemployment benefits, through September 6, 2021. The legislation also extended unemployment benefits for self-employed and gig workers, extended benefits for unemployed mixed earners , and extended the number of weeks individuals could receive unemployment.

This page focuses on state governments that ended or announced plans to end the enhanced $300 federal unemployment benefits before they expired on September 6, 2021. This page does not cover the special benefits for self-employed individuals, gig workers, or mixed earners. to check your state’s unemployment website for more detailed information.

In this article you will find:

Americans Return To Workforce Faster In States That Are Ending Pandemic Unemployment Benefits

In places like Missouri and 21 others states that will be ending extended and enhanced pandemic unemployment benefits this month, rates of unemployment are falling at levels higher than counterparts still providing these benefits.

In places like Missouri and 21 others states that will be ending extended and enhanced pandemic unemployment benefits this month, rates of unemployment are falling at levels higher than counterparts still providing these benefits.

The revelation calls into question once again if the allocations, which provide a boosted $300 in payments, are helping or hindering economic recovery efforts as the United States reins in the pandemic, a point that the White House has denied on numerous occasions. The payments, passed this spring by the federal government, are set to expire in September, but states can opt out before then.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson said that while the benefits were helpful during the height of the pandemic, according to the Wall Street Journal, their continuation has “worsened the workforce issues we are facing.”

22 states will be ending these enhanced benefits this month, including Missouri. An additional four more states will be ending the same benefits by July 10.

Many Missouri businesses, like Midas Hospitality, have noticed a significant change in job seekers since the state ended the benefits.

Million Americans To Lose Benefits

About 1 in 4 U.S. workers now on unemployment will lose their benefits early through the actions of these 25 states, according to Andy Stettner, a labor expert at the left-leaning Century Foundation. That amounts to about 4 million workers facing an end to all or most of their jobless aid starting on June 12.

In Ifzal’s case, he will lose all of his unemployment assistance because he’s on the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, or PEUC, which was created last year to provide extra weeks of benefits after regular state jobless aid comes to an end. Most states only provide 26 weeks of benefits. Once the PEUC program ends in Texas on June 26, Ifzal won’t qualify for additional jobless aid.

Ifzal said it’s still hard to find work in his field and that landing a lower-paid job in an industry unrelated to his experience won’t help him in the long run. He started a petition to ask Texas Governor Greg Abbott to reconsider his decision to end unemployment benefits, which has received more than 9,000 signatures and comments. Many are from people who can’t find jobs in their fields, including the oil and gas industry, which lost more than 100,000 jobs in the pandemic.

“I have worked 11, 12 years in my field and it doesn’t make any sense to find a job at McDonald’s,” Ifzal said.

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Gig Workers To Lose All Unemployment Benefits In 20 Gop States: You Can’t Prepare For It

Selina Smedley said she was expecting to have jobless aid through early September, a $300 weekly boost that has been helping her get by while her Dallas-area cleaning business remains far below pre-pandemic levels. Then Texas Governor Greg Abbott unmoored her by announcing an early end to enhanced jobless benefits.

As of June 26, the 50-year-old Smedley will get cut off from all jobless aid two months before federal funding is due to expire. She is one of almost 1 million self-employed workers who are hurtling toward a benefits cliff next month in the 20 states where Republican governors are shutting off the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program early. Most of the governors cited a desperate need for workers among employers such as restaurants and retailers that are reopening to the public.

“There’s no unemployment” after June 26 for her and other self-employed workers in Texas, said Smedley, who lives in Mansfield, about 30 miles south of Dallas. “It’s really frustrating that the feds gave us this to help us, and our governor just throws it to the wind.”

She added, “You can’t prepare for it when it’s a month away.”

“When Abbott said there are millions of jobs, maybe so but for people like me, no one is going to hire a 50-year-old woman who is has been out of the loop for so long,” Smedley said.

States That Ended Covid Unemployment Benefits See No Boost In Job Growth

States that ended federal unemployment benefits earlier this summer saw August job growth at less than half the rate of states that retained the benefits, according to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why it matters: Leaders in the largely Republican-led states had insisted that the benefits were discouraging people from work, and ended the assistance program early ahead of its planned expiration on Sept. 6.

• The benefits, which came in the form of weekly $300 payments, had been in place since spring last year to help families through the pandemic.
• A growing group of states began ending the benefits in June in what they called an effort to incentivize people to return to the workforce.

What they’re saying: “Economists analyzing the unemployment issue have seen little evidence yet that cutting off the benefits has provided a clear boost to local labor markets, in part because of difficulties separating the influence of the payments from larger shifts in the labor force, or of the potentially offsetting damage done by the pandemic,”Reuters writes.

Worth noting: When jobs are hard to fill, a broader worker awakening over the past year is part of the reason, Axios’ Hope King writes.

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Cut Off From All Benefits

All told, about 1 million gig workers and nontraditional workers who qualified for PUA will cease to receive benefits in the 20 states that are curtailing the program early. These states have provided a 30-day warning that the benefits are ending, but workers who spoke to CBS MoneyWatch said they believe they will need more time than that to find employment. These workers represent a diverse pool from freelance writers and musicians to dog walkers, house cleaners and Uber drivers.

“They are cutting them off from all of those benefits,” said Andy Stettner, an unemployment expert at the Century Foundation. “We know not everyone will find jobs in the 30-day window that they are providing.”

Some lawmakers and worker advocates have asked the U.S. Department of Labor to intervene, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the National Employment Law Project. In a letter to Secretary Marty Walsh, Sanders cited the risk of poverty and hardship that self-employed workers face when the benefits end early next month.

Democrats in Congress secured life-saving unemployment aid to workers so they wouldnt have to go back to work for starvation wages or without childcare. I sent a letter to Labor Secretary Walsh today asking him to ensure Republican Governors do not strip that assistance away.

Bernie Sanders May 13, 2021

The $300 Boost Really Is Not The Big Part Of The Story Here

Twenty-six states cut off the extra $300 in weekly benefits this summer before the federal expiration, while 22 also canceled the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs. Many of those governors blamed the unemployment programs, specifically the extra $300 of weekly benefits, for labor shortages.

But the early cancellation of the $300 boost didnt lead to much of the job gains in those states.

Most of the unemployed workers who found jobs were on PUA the program for workers like contractors and freelancers who dont normally qualify for regular unemployment insurance and PEUC the program that provides extra weeks of benefits.

The $300 boost really is not the big part of the story here, Dube said. Ending PEUC and PUA is really the bigger part.

Nationwide, those three federal unemployment programs are set to expire on September 6.

Based on the analysis of the early cutoff in the 19 states, the researchers suggested that the federal expiration could lead to a half million new jobs in September and October combined, while the majority of the 4 million workers losing benefits would take even longer to find jobs.

The paper also estimates an $8 billion drop in spending during September and October.

This week, the Biden administration called for states with high unemployment to use leftover stimulus funds to extend some of the pandemic-era unemployment programs that are set to expire in early September.

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Is There A Labor Shortage

It’s hard to pinpoint the answer with available data, according to economists. But evidence suggests labor shortages are occurring, at least in some areas and sectors.

The most compelling evidence is twofold, according to Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at Glassdoor, a job and recruiting site.

Job openings hit a record high in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy added 266,000 job payrolls in April much weaker than the 1 million expected, the Bureau said last week.

In other words, there’s strong demand for labor as the economy reopens, but not a commensurate flood of workers onto payrolls.

Is This All Set In Stone

Not necessarily.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the National Employment Law Project petitioned U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh this week to intervene on behalf of workers.

They argue Walsh has the legal authority to prevent the loss of benefits for self-employed, gig and other workers collecting PUA, due to certain wording in the CARES Act.

It’s unclear if the Labor Department will attempt to intervene.

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Florida Ended Unemployment Benefits Early Did People Return To Work

TALLAHASSEE Five months ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis administration announced it was ending $300 per week federal unemployment benefits early to spur Floridians back to jobs.

The jobs are there, DeSantis said in May. Im confident, with almost half a million job openings, that people are going to be able to get a job and get back to work.

So, what happened next?

Worker shortages persist. National studies show that ending the benefits early had minimal impact on job growth. And Floridians who had their benefits end say they still havent found work.

Certainly, the numbers dont show its done anything to spur the states economic recovery, said Ned Murray, the Associate Director of the Jorge M. Pérez Metropolitan Center at Florida International University.

As Florida emerges from the pandemic, economists and observers have puzzled over the states disjointed recovery.

In some ways, Floridas economy is doing great. The state has restored 77 percent of the nearly 1.3 million jobs it lost since March 2020. The states tax revenues continue to exceed expectations each month. Industries such as housing have boomed.

There are about 500,000 jobs available, according to the state typically a good sign.

But like many states, Florida businesses have struggled to find workers to fill them.

DeSantis spokesperson said the initiative was a success, although she pointed to the recent federal jobs report that showed just 194,000 jobs were added nationally in September.

Us States Ending Federal Unemployment Benefit Saw No Clear Job Gains

A “Now Hiring” sign advertising jobs at a hand car wash is seen along a street in Miami, Florida, U.S. May 8, 2020. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

WASHINGTON, July 20 – U.S. states putting an early end to federal unemployment benefits saw a larger jump in local labor supply in June than those planning to maintain the $300 weekly supplement until early September, new data show, though there was no clear sign ithad led to significantly more hiring.

State-level jobs data released earlier this month show that in the 26 states stopping benefits early an additional 174,000 people joined the labor force in June, by either taking jobs or beginning work searches, compared to 47,000 in the other states.

While that may indicate the withdrawal of benefits is having some of the impact intended by the governors who cut off the stipend, and causing more people to seek employment, the numbers are small in a national labor force of 161 million and come with a cautionary note: Job gains in both groups of states were roughly the same.

That could be the result of lagging data, since the survey that produces national and state job estimates ended its June round before the benefits actually ran out in most of the states planning to end them early.

Goldman Sachs economists also found little evidence yet that the cessation of benefits across a group of mostly Republican-led states was having much impact on labor markets that continue to puzzle Federal Reserve and other officials.

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Cents In My Bank Account

Some of those who will lose their benefits in a matter of days or weeks told CBS MoneyWatch they want their governors and others to know they aren’t lazy. Some have young children that have been in remote school and require supervision, making it harder to take on a job outside the home. Others have health issues. Some are over 60 and said they believed they were having trouble finding work because of an unspoken bias against older job candidates.

Others noted that while restaurants are hiring, other industries remain weakened because of the impact of COVID-19. Jihan Johnston, a single mom in Atlanta, has a masters degree in education, but the pandemic has hit her sector hard. Last year, jobs in public K-12 education fell by 8%. The impact might be even worse than suggested since many schools have held off on hiring new staff amid remote schooling and other changes, the Brookings Institution noted.

“I’ve applied to over 2,000 jobs in the last year. I haven’t heard back from anybody,” said Johnston, who has a 12-year-old son. “I had to move out of my house. I’m living with my mother. I have 88 cents in my bank account.”

Johnston said she applied for work in the education, technology and customer service fields, but believes her resume may make her overqualified for some jobs. She also worries about the impact of bias, given that she is Black, and the fact that she’s been out of work since before the pandemic.

Faqs About Unemployment Benefits By State

When will Covid unemployment insurance benefits end in Alabama?

Governor Kay Ivey announced on May 10, 2021 that Alabama would end pandemic-related federal unemployment benefits on June 19, 2021.

When will Covid unemployment insurance benefits end in Alaska?

Governor Mike Dunleavyâs Department of Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner, Dr. Tamika L. Ledbetter, announced on May 14, 2021 that Alaska would end pandemic-related federal unemployment benefits on June 12, 2021.

When will Covid unemployment insurance benefits end in Arizona?

Governor Doug Ducey announced on May 13, 2021 that Arizona would end pandemic-related federal unemployment benefits on July 10, 2021. Funds will be used for Return-To-Work bonuses for Arizonans who were collecting unemployment insurance prior to the announcement. One-time payments are $2,000 for individuals who rejoin the workforce at a full-time job and $1,000 for part-time. Each will be paid out after completing a minimum of 10 weeks of work. To qualify, recipients must also make $25 per hour or less, equivalent to a yearly salary of $52,000, at their new job and must begin working by September 6, 2021.

When will Covid unemployment insurance benefits end in Arkansas?

When will Covid unemployment insurance benefits end in California?

Pandemic-related federal unemployment benefits are due to continue until September 6, 2021.

When will Covid unemployment insurance benefits end in Colorado?

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Over Half Of States Ending Federal Unemployment Benefits Early

Twenty-six states have announced that they are ending the expanded federal unemployment benefits in the American Rescue Plan prior to their technical expiration date in early September. Twelve states have already terminated expanded benefits.1

The Congressional Budget Office originally estimated that combined spending on the three major emergency federal unemployment programs in the American Rescue Plan would total $206 billion. However, even before accounting for early state terminations, we estimate total spending on these programs will be about 20 percent lower than CBOs estimate, due to lower-than-expected spending thus far. After accounting for early state terminations, we estimate the total deficit impact for these three programs will be a further 10 percent lower, or 27 percent lower than originally forecast around $150 billion versus $206 billion.

All three benefits are payable through September 4 under the bill. However, over recent weeks, 26 states have decided to end federal UI benefits between two to three months earlier than their official September 4 deadline.3

The national unemployment rate in April was 6.1 percent, whereas the average unemployment rate of the states ending federal unemployment benefits early was 4.7 percent 1.4 percentage points lower. Only six out of the 26 states Alaska, Arizona, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, and Texas had unemployment rates higher than the national unemployment rate in April.