PHOENIX — Gov. Doug Ducey broke no laws when he unilaterally cut off the extra $300 a week the unemployed in Arizona were getting last year, the state Court of Appeals has ruled.
Judge David Weinzweig acknowledged that Congress in 2020 agreed to supplement the state benefits that was available to workers displaced by COVID. And Gov. Doug Ducey directed the state Department of Economic Security to join.
But Weinzweig, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, said the governor was entitled to withdraw from the program early even though it left what the attorney for those challenging the action said were about 100,000 people who had their benefits cut back to the state maximum of $240 a week, the second lowest in the nation.
The judge rejected arguments that state law required Ducey to pursue the maximum benefits available, saying that’s not how the law is worded.
The court did not address the fact that Ducey, in halting the extra payments on July 10, 2021 — 58 days before the federal program actually ended — made it clear he was hoping that lower jobless benefits would help certain Arizona employers, particularly in the restaurant and hospitality industry, find the workers that they needed.
Central to the legal fight is the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program. Approved by Congress in March 2020, it initially provided an extra $600 a week on top of state benefits.
Arizona agreed to accept that money.
The amount was later cut to $300.
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