The economic stimulus program of the Obama administration, ARRA, is intended to save jobs and increase consumer spending during the worst economic downturn billion—will provide toward tax cuts and support a wide spectrum of government services, including health, education, energy, housing and many other areas.

One important part of ARRA that will benefit many Arkansas workers and their families is the modernization of the state’s unemployment insurance benefits. Our state is expected to receive about $271 million in new unemployment insurance funding, which is about 9 percent of all stimulus money the state is expected to receive. The funds will be distributed during fiscal years 2009 through 2011, and the state has about eight years to spend both the modernization and administrative money (to implement reforms) and the incentive payments (to assist with increased benefits).

The unemployment funding in the stimulus package will not only help protect thousands of additional Arkansas workers from job cuts and loss of income during this recession, but the recent reforms that Arkansas has made will also lead us to have a stronger unemployment insurance program over the long term.