Arkansas Unemployment Laws: Eligibility, Benefits, and Appeals

Arkansas unemployment benefits pay between $81 and $451 per week to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, for a maximum of 12 weeks. Qualifying turns on your past earnings, the reason your job ended, and whether you keep up an active job search once your claim is open. The state cut the maximum duration from 25 weeks to 12 for claims filed on or after January 1, 2024, so the financial runway is shorter than it used to be.

Who Qualifies

You have to clear two separate tests. The first is monetary: Arkansas looks at your wages during a 12-month “base period,” which is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you file. If employer-reported wages in that window are high enough and spread across the quarters correctly, you have a claim.¹

The second test runs every week you want a check. You must be able to work, available for work, and actively looking.² That means at least five documented job contacts each week, reported when you certify.³ Miss the contacts and that week’s benefit is gone.

How Much You’ll Get Per Week

Your weekly benefit amount comes off a sliding scale tied to your base period wages. The minimum is $81, frozen at that figure since 2012. The maximum is $451.⁴⁵ You don’t calculate the figure yourself. The Division of Workforce Services publishes a benefit and earnings table that maps verified wages directly to a weekly rate, and the system assigns yours once your wage records clear.

How Long Benefits Last

For claims filed on or after January 1, 2024, the total you can collect over a benefit year is the lesser of 12 times your weekly benefit amount or one-third of your total base period wages. Twelve weeks is the ceiling, and plenty of claimants hit the one-third-of-wages limit first and get fewer weeks. Before this change, the multiplier was 25, roughly six months of coverage.⁶ File promptly and start searching the day you’re laid off.

Filing a Claim

Arkansas takes claims online through the EZARC portal at dws.arkansas.gov. The application runs about 30 minutes. Have these ready before you start:

Social Security number
Mailing address, physical address, and phone number
Your last employer’s name and address
Bank account information if you want direct deposit
Alien identification number if you aren’t a U.S. citizen

Your claim’s effective date is the day you submit, not the day you start.⁷ If you log out partway through, the system holds your progress for only 24 hours before deleting it. Some situations require follow-up documents to your local office within 10 days, so read the confirmation page before you close it.

The Waiting Week

Your first eligible week is unpaid. You still have to meet every requirement for it, including the five job contacts, but no check comes for that week. If you remain eligible the following week, that is when your first payment arrives.⁴

Working Part Time While Collecting

You can work part time and still collect, but your wages that week control what happens. Any week your earnings reach 140% of your weekly benefit amount, you’re not considered unemployed and get nothing.⁸

Below that cutoff, there’s a disregard. Earnings up to 40% of your weekly benefit amount don’t reduce your check at all. Everything above that 40% comes off the benefit dollar for dollar.⁵ Say your weekly benefit is $300. The first $120 you earn costs you nothing. Earn $200 and only $80 gets subtracted, leaving a $220 benefit plus the $200 in wages. You almost always come out ahead by taking the hours.

When Refusing a Job Offer Costs You Benefits

Turning down work is risky. Arkansas generally treats part-time work as suitable unless most of your qualifying weeks during the base period came from full-time employment.² If you worked mostly part time before the layoff, a comparable part-time offer is probably suitable, and refusing it can end your benefits.

Getting Fired: Misconduct Rules

Being fired doesn’t automatically disqualify you. Poor performance, missed production goals, or struggling with the job isn’t misconduct unless the employer proves the shortfall was intentional.⁹ Repeated failures after progressive discipline can be treated as intentional.

Arkansas splits misconduct into two tiers with very different consequences.

General misconduct covers violations of workplace behavioral policies, ignoring a known written rule, or willful disregard of the employer’s interests. The disqualification lasts until you complete at least 30 days of employment covered by an unemployment compensation law.⁹

Serious misconduct covers dishonesty, drinking on the job, working under the influence of drugs or alcohol, harassment, insubordination, and willful safety violations. A positive drug test under a DOT-qualified screen conducted per the employer’s written policy counts here too. The disqualification runs until you earn wages in two separate quarters totaling at least 35 times your weekly benefit amount.⁹

Absenteeism counts as misconduct if you were fired under a written attendance policy, whether or not that policy assigns fault for the absences.

Overpayments and Fraud Penalties

If the Division decides it paid you money you weren’t entitled to, you have to pay it back. The agency can deduct it from future benefits, intercept your Arkansas state tax refund, or intercept your federal refund.¹⁰ Unpaid overpayments accrue interest at 10% per year starting 30 days after the first billing statement.

Fraud adds a 50% penalty on top of the overpayment. Pay the whole overpayment within 30 days of the determination’s mailing date and the penalty drops to 15%.¹⁰ Either way, no future benefits reach you until the overpayment, penalties, interest, and any assessed costs are fully paid.

The director can waive a non-fraud overpayment if you received the money without fault and requiring repayment would be against equity and good conscience.¹⁰ Financial hardship is one factor. Fraud overpayments cannot be waived.

Appealing a Denial

You have 20 days from the mailing date on your determination notice to appeal a denial or reduction. That clock runs from the mailing date, not the day it reached you. Appeals go to the Arkansas Appeal Tribunal by fax or mail and must include the case number from the determination.

The Tribunal schedules a hearing, usually by phone, where you can present evidence and witnesses. If the Tribunal rules against you, the next step is the Board of Review, and after that the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Every decision prints its own deadline, so read each one carefully.

Taxes on Your Benefits

Unemployment benefits are taxable income at the federal level.¹¹ Arkansas sends a Form 1099-G by the end of January showing the total paid to you the previous calendar year, and you report that on your federal return.¹²

You can head off the tax bill by requesting voluntary federal withholding at a flat 10% from every payment. File IRS Form W-4V, or use the state agency’s withholding form if one is available.¹³ If you skip withholding, quarterly estimated payments on IRS Form 1040-ES will keep you out of a surprise balance in April.

1
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. Arkansas Unemployment Insurance FAQs
2
Justia. Arkansas Code 11-10-507 – Eligibility – Conditions – Definitions
3
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. ESD-ARK-502 RB Work Search Form
4
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. Your Unemployment Insurance Information Handbook
5
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. Arkansas Division of Workforce Services Benefit and Earnings Table
6
Justia. Arkansas Code 11-10-504 – Maximum Benefits Payable
7
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. EZARC
8
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. Arkansas Unemployment Insurance Information Brochure
9
Justia. Arkansas Code 11-10-514 – Disqualification – Discharge for Misconduct
10
Justia. Arkansas Code 11-10-532 – Claims – Recovery
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 85 – Unemployment Compensation
12
Internal Revenue Service. Form 1099-G, Certain Government Payments
13
Congress.gov. Federal Taxation of Unemployment Insurance Benefits