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Some 250,000 jobless Arizonians received an extra $300 in weekly unemployment benefits on Monday in addition to their state unemployment benefits.
The extra money was a result of four executive orders President Donald Trump signed this month — one of which called for an additional $300 in federal weekly unemployment benefits through the end of the year, to be taken from a $44 billion fund set aside for disaster aid.
Trump’s orders came after Congress failed to come up with a compromise to replace the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefit jobless that expired at the end of July. Americans had been receiving those beefed up benefits under the $2 trillion CARES Act. When the extra benefits ende, the average amount of weekly unemployment benefits Americans received fell to $257 from $812.
As of Monday, nearly $75 million was distributed to unemployed Arizonians to make the extra $300 payments, Brett Bezio, a spokesman for Arizona’s Department of Economic Security, told MarketWatch.
Before Monday, the maximum weekly benefit Arizonians received was $240. The minimum weekly unemployment benefit in Arizona is $119 — therefore every Arizonian on unemployment would be eligible for the extra $300 benefit, according to Trump’s executive order.
Trump’s executive order initially was ill-received by states who were told that they would have to contribute an additional $100 a week in unemployment benefits on top of what they were already paying to beneficiaries in order to receive an additional $300.
The Trump administration reversed course after state governors said they could not afford to contribute an additional $100. Instead, anyone who gets at least $100 in unemployment benefits from their state would qualify for the extra $300.
Six states, in addition to Arizona, have been approved to use funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to distribute the additional $300 a week benefit as of Sunday.
So far, none of those states has been able to make those payments.
