People in our area that have been collecting unemployment insurance for a while could see those benefits run out on in a week.
Extended benefits from the federal government, which are provided after state benefits run out, are set to expire April 5. A planned extension passed by the House of Representatives did not pass the Senate before they left for their Easter break, after it was blocked by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Sen. Coburn had wanted the extension to be paid for with stimulus funds, which Democrats didn't agree with.
"We had a compromise, we developed a plan where our children weren't paying for this, we would, by offsetting and not adding to the debt," Coburn said Friday.
Without the extension, people getting state jobless benefits won't be able to apply for the federally-paid unemployment insurance after April 5, and anyone already receiving those federal checks could be cut off. Democrats have said they plan to take up the issue after returning from the Easter recess on April 12, and possibly include retroactive payments to make up for the lapse in coverage.
Amber Cannabis of Fort Smith came into the Department of Workforce Services Monday with questions about how that would affect her. She had lost her job as an accountant last June, and had been living off a combination of unemployment insurance and savings.
"Am I going to stop getting the money?" she said. "Am I going to have to live with my parents, because one of my siblings is already living there."
Vickie Spicer is the manager at the department of workforce services office in Fort Smith, and says other people have been calling and asking what this means for them.
"The bad thing is we're also waiting for information right now, because we can't just listen to the news and say I think it's going to be this way," she said, "the people that come in here want an answer, they don't want an I think it's going to be this way."
DWS also begins unemployment renewal on April 5, when people who have been receiving unemployment insurance for the past four quarters have to sing up again. Spicer said they usually see about two or three-thousand people in about a week, and have to talk to all of them.
"We only have about five interviewers," she said, "and there are so many different levels of unemployment we have to go through now that we have to check all of them."
Letters to people affected by the renewal have already gone out; Spicer recommends recipients try to come on the day indicated in the letter, or later in the week.
"They can also fill out an unemployment insurance application from the Workforce Services website, and if there's an emergency they can just leave that before they go so we can get started," she said.
For more information, visit the DWS website at Arkansas.gov.
Extended benefits from the federal government, which are provided after state benefits run out, are set to expire April 5. A planned extension passed by the House of Representatives did not pass the Senate before they left for their Easter break, after it was blocked by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Sen. Coburn had wanted the extension to be paid for with stimulus funds, which Democrats didn't agree with.
"We had a compromise, we developed a plan where our children weren't paying for this, we would, by offsetting and not adding to the debt," Coburn said Friday.
Without the extension, people getting state jobless benefits won't be able to apply for the federally-paid unemployment insurance after April 5, and anyone already receiving those federal checks could be cut off. Democrats have said they plan to take up the issue after returning from the Easter recess on April 12, and possibly include retroactive payments to make up for the lapse in coverage.
Amber Cannabis of Fort Smith came into the Department of Workforce Services Monday with questions about how that would affect her. She had lost her job as an accountant last June, and had been living off a combination of unemployment insurance and savings.
"Am I going to stop getting the money?" she said. "Am I going to have to live with my parents, because one of my siblings is already living there."
Vickie Spicer is the manager at the department of workforce services office in Fort Smith, and says other people have been calling and asking what this means for them.
"The bad thing is we're also waiting for information right now, because we can't just listen to the news and say I think it's going to be this way," she said, "the people that come in here want an answer, they don't want an I think it's going to be this way."
DWS also begins unemployment renewal on April 5, when people who have been receiving unemployment insurance for the past four quarters have to sing up again. Spicer said they usually see about two or three-thousand people in about a week, and have to talk to all of them.
"We only have about five interviewers," she said, "and there are so many different levels of unemployment we have to go through now that we have to check all of them."
Letters to people affected by the renewal have already gone out; Spicer recommends recipients try to come on the day indicated in the letter, or later in the week.
"They can also fill out an unemployment insurance application from the Workforce Services website, and if there's an emergency they can just leave that before they go so we can get started," she said.
For more information, visit the DWS website at Arkansas.gov.
