States have begun to decline the federal government’s supplemental unemployment benefits program, which provide an extra $300 per week to existing unemployment benefits, as federal law authorized states to pull out of the program beginning on May 12.
Tennessee was the most recent addition to the list, as Governor Bill Lee (R) announced on Tuesday the state will discontinue the program on July 3. Governor Lee adds the state to the list of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, North Dakota, Iowa and Montana.
Most of that list plan to end the benefits by the end of June.
The $300-a-week federal payments, previously authorized at $600-a-week under the Coronavirus Aid, Recovery and Economic Assistance (CARES) Act, will continue on top of existing unemployment benefits until September 6 for states that do not opt out of the program.
The Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. economy added only 266,000 jobs in the month of April and the unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent versus a conservative Dow Jones estimate of one million new jobs in April and a 5.8 percent unemployment rate. Many economists had expected even higher jobs numbers.
