By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- Insisting there are plenty of jobs out there, the Arizona House gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a measure to cut the length of time that Arizonans who are laid off can collect jobless benefits.
Current law says those let go through no fault of their own can get up to 24 weeks of payments. These are supposed to be equal to one-half of what they were earning, though state law caps that at no more than $320 a week.
SB 1167 would cut that to no more than 20 weeks when the jobless rate tops 8.5%. And it would not increase even in times of even tighter job markets, such as when Arizona's unemployment rate topped 11% during the last recession.
And even tighter limits would apply during periods of lower unemployment, on a sliding scale down to as few as 12 weeks when the rate drops to 5% or less.
That is what would apply now, with the latest figure putting the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 3.7%.
The measure already has cleared the Senate and now awaits a final House vote before it can be transmitted to Gov. Katie Hobbs.
But it may not get that far.
Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, said Tuesday he cannot support the measure. He said that changes in the system should be worked out through negotiations with all interested parties involved,
just like what happened two years ago when the maximum benefit went from $240 to $320 and the length of benefits when the jobless rate is less than 5% got cut by two weeks.
And if Cook...
On 30 April 2026, DOJ announced a new anti-fraud initiative: the Fraud Oversight through Careful Use of Statistics (FOCUS) initiative. The FOCUS initiative is intended to strengthen DOJ’s working ...