While Justin Mackey worked to rebuild his locksmith business, the 38-year-old was relying on getting a $420-a-week unemployment check for another four months.
That money was a fraction of what he brought home before the coronavirus pandemic shut down his business in Arkansas, but at least it kept his mortgage and other bills paid. And it allowed him to buy clothes and school supplies for his three young children: Camdyn, 14, Connor, 7, and Charlie, 3.
“It’s better than losing everything,” Mackey said.
But last week, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the state would be ending the federal unemployment programs early, including the $300 weekly boost. Those benefits will now expire at the end of June, more than two months earlier than Mackey had expected.
“Continuing these programs until the planned expiration date of Sept. 4, 2021, is not necessary and actually interferes with the ability of employers to fill over 40,000 job vacancies in Arkansas,” Hutchinson wrote in a letter. He joins Republican governors in Montana, South Carolina and Mississippi, who have also announced an early end to the aid, saying that it’s stopping people from taking jobs. Other states could follow.
As a result, many jobless people in these states will soon receive only their state benefit. The average weekly check is $248 in Arkansas; in Mississippi, it’s $195.
Rebecca Dixon, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said leaving people with smaller benefits is shortsighted and dangerous.
“We’re going to see family hardship,” Dixon said. “We’re looking at a tsunami of debt, evictions and food insecurity on the horizon, and it’s mostly women and people of color who will bear the brunt of that.”
What’s more, because the federal programs expanded the pool of workers who are eligible for unemployment benefits, many self-employed, gig workers and freelancers will be entirely cut off from aid come July.
Mackey is one such worker.
His unemployment benefits have allowed him to keep his locksmith business, Jonesboro Lock & Key, running. He’s owned it for more than a decade.
But if that aid ends early, he might have to grab a job and abandon the shop. He said the wages on offer in his area were often unsustainable.
“I couldn’t afford to work in a fast-food place,” Mackey said. “I was making that money in high school.” (The minimum wage in Arkansas is $11.)
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