Natural State News

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic brings an extra layer of frustration for Arkansas residents who continue to feel pushed to the wayside by the state government. 

In late December, federal pandemic legislation provided for an additional unemployment payout to Americans whose jobs continue to be impacted by the pandemic. 

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) referenced the legislation on his website, stating that unemployed Arkansans were eligible for $300 in federal aid in addition to the state's benefits.

However, despite the emergency relief legislation ordering an additional $300 in weekly benefits to the nation's unemployed through mid-March, Arkansas continues to pay out only the state minimum unemployment benefit of approximately $200 per week before taxes. 

The problem lies not only in not getting the financial help desperately needed by hundreds of Arkansans to keep their lights on and families fed during a global health crisis, but also in the elusiveness of state employees who should be addressing the matter, says Arkansas small business owner Jeremiah Stark.

"Everyone that's involved in this should talking about it," Stark told Natural State News. He noted that accountability lies with politicians and the people running the state's unemployment programs. 

"It's the accountability for the money above all else," he said. "Where is the money going? We don't know, and if we ask somebody we won't get an answer."

Stark is a lifelong resident of Arkansas and owner of Stark Brothers Humble Handyman service in Little Rock. In an industry that already sees frequent unemployment and declines in business from November through March, Stark says he's had a hard time getting the unemployment help he needs to stay afloat. 

When the business owner could not resume his services after the slow season in March 2020, he filed for unemployment. However, Arkansas did not implement unemployment benefits until at least five months after the shutdown, Stark said. 

"That was five, seven months that I went without any money at all," he said adding that he managed to keep his dues, such as rent and utilities, at bay until he received a large retroactive unemployment check for all the months the state has missed. 

"When I did get that big check it went to all the bills that I couldn't pay for seven months," he said.

That, however, wasn't the end of the problem for Arkansas. Despite state residents like Stark qualifying for the federal unemployment boost that runs December through March, Stark still hadn't seen any of that money as of mid-February. 

He explained that the state added an identity verification step to the unemployment application process for this latest round of funding. This causes months of delays for some people out of work because the request for ID verification was sent through an email that had a seven-day expiration date.

The email went to the spam folder for Stark and many others, he said, and the state did not make any further correspondence about the email, meaning many people did not even know the email or the request for ID existed. 

To remedy the problem, Arkansans have to try to get in line at the unemployment office early enough to be served, sometimes as early as 4 a.m. The office sees only 100 people a day. Stark waited in line and got into the office to get his ID verified, but later, when he opened his unemployment portal at home, he was told his ID still needs verification.

Caught in a vicious cycle, Stark says he doesn't know for sure if the state unemployment departments are this unorganized when there's not a pandemic, having never utilized the agency before. He said it's the state's lack of action in a public health crisis that counts. 

Stark is thousands of dollars behind in his rent and has promised his landlord more unemployment dollars that haven't come. 

"Is there no money to go around?" a frustrated Stark said. "I doubt it. And it's not the people who work in unemployment offices, the people who answer the phones. They're just messengers who tell us what they're told. It's the higher-ups."

To make matters worse, emailing the Arkansas pandemic assistance gets an automated response that the email inbox is no longer monitored, according to Stark. 

"They force you to call and when you call they don't have an answer," he said. "Then you have to try to get into the office. I did everything they said to do and still nothing."

After almost a year of this frustration and robotic responses from politicians, Stark traveled to the capitol this month to meet with his elected officials face-to-face. His message to the people in charge of Arkansas' unemployment systems is to stop abandoning the public.

It takes 45 minutes on average to get an answer from the Arkansas Division of Workforce Services, Stark said, and the answer is always the same: just wait.

"Wait for what?" he asked. "Wait until we are homeless?"