ODESSA, Texas — If you've been receiving federal unemployment benefits because of the COVID-19 pandemic, your payments are about to get a little smaller.
Governor Greg Abbott announcing that starting on June 26, federal unemployment compensation in relation to COVID-19 will be ending. That extra $300 tacked on top of those benefits will also be ending.
"The governor has announced that as of June 26 of this year, Texas will stop participating in the pandemic unemployment programs through the ARPA which is the American Recovery Plan Act," James Bernsen, Texas Workforce Commission deputy communications director, said. "If they are on the current state unemployment benefits, they will get that. They wouldn’t get a $300 additional if they are on a federal extension in that state, however. Those benefits would expire. Now, they may be eligible for state benefits. It really kind of depends on a case-by-case basis."
It's all designed to help Texans start filling in all the jobs that are available. In fact, there are more jobs available than there are Texans filing for these unemployment benefits.
"There are actually more jobs out there than we have people looking for them right now in Texas. We have about 1 million jobs available in Texas right now so there are a lot of opportunities out there. A lot of people have been holding back and it made sense during the pandemic to be a little cautious there," Bernsen said.
In the Midland-Odessa area, there are a lot of people out of work. According to the latest unemployment rates, Midland county is sitting at around 7% unemployment, while Ector county is seeing about 11%. Prior to the pandemic, both counties were hovering around 2%. The state average right now is 6.9%.
"What we’re seeing is Texas as a whole is coming back. We’re seeing a lot of those industries coming back so I think you know you’re going to see some movement on those numbers as well. Obviously we want to get back to where we were at the beginning of the pandemic," Bernsen said.
With all the open jobs around the state, the Texas Workforce Commission has resources to help the unemployed find them and fill them.
"We have been providing a lot of job resources and we continue to. We have two job websites mytxcareer.com and workintexas.com and both those jobsites have the same jobs there. They have a little bit of different services attached to them," Bernsen said.
Abbott also said when making this decision that part of the reason is to reduce the number of potential fraudulent unemployment claims being filed, and according to Abbott, the T.W.C. estimates that nearly 18% of claims filed during the pandemic are confirmed or suspected to be fraudulent.