Arkansas Unemployment Laws: Eligibility, Benefits, and Appeals

Arkansas unemployment benefits pay between $81 and $451 a week for a maximum of 12 weeks to workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, keep looking for work, and earned enough during a set 12-month base period to qualify. The Arkansas Division of Workforce Services runs the program, sets your weekly amount from your past wages, and requires you to certify each week that you’re able to work, available, and making at least five job contacts.

Who Qualifies

You have to clear two separate tests: monetary eligibility when you file, and ongoing weekly eligibility for every week you claim.

Monetary eligibility is based on wages earned during your “base period,” which is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you file.¹ The Division pulls your employer-reported wages from that window and uses them to decide whether you qualify and how much you’ll receive.

Weekly eligibility is a different question. Arkansas law requires you to be able to work, available for work, and actively looking.² You must make at least five job contacts every week and report them when you certify.³ Miss the contacts, and you can lose the week’s payment even if your claim is otherwise good.

How Much You’ll Receive Each Week

Your weekly benefit amount sits on a sliding scale from $81 to $451.⁴ The $81 floor has been frozen there since 2012.⁵ Higher base-period earnings produce a higher weekly check, up to the $451 cap.

You don’t have to compute this yourself. The Division publishes a benefit and earnings table that maps base-period wages to a weekly amount, and the system assigns your rate automatically once your wages are verified.

How Long Payments Last

Arkansas has one of the shortest benefit durations in the country. For claims filed on or after January 1, 2024, the total you can collect is the lesser of 12 times your weekly benefit amount or one-third of your total base-period wages. Twelve weeks is the ceiling. Many claimants get fewer because the one-third-of-wages formula runs out first. The previous cap was 25 times the weekly amount, which gave most claimants about six months of coverage.⁶

The first eligible week on your claim is a waiting week. You have to meet every eligibility requirement that week, including the five job contacts, but you don’t get paid for it.⁴ Your first check covers the second eligible week.

How to File a Claim

Claims are filed online through the EZARC portal at dws.arkansas.gov. Set aside about 30 minutes and have your Social Security number, mailing and physical address, phone number, last employer’s name and address, and banking details for direct deposit ready. Non-citizens also need an alien identification number.⁷

Your claim’s effective date is the day you submit, not the day you start the application, so filing promptly matters. If you log out midway, the system holds your progress for only 24 hours before deleting it. Some situations require you to mail or fax documents to your local office within 10 days, so read the confirmation screen closely.⁷

Working Part-Time While You Collect

Part-time work is allowed and often encouraged, but the numbers matter. Arkansas considers you “unemployed” for a given week only if your earnings are less than 140% of your weekly benefit amount.⁸ Hit that threshold, and you lose the entire week.

Below the cutoff, a partial-benefit formula applies. You keep every dollar you earn up to 40% of your weekly benefit amount. Earnings above that 40% mark are subtracted dollar-for-dollar from your check.⁵ Say your weekly benefit is $300. You can earn up to $120 without any reduction. Earn $200, and only the $80 above the disregard comes off your check, leaving $220 in benefits plus the $200 in wages. Taking work almost always leaves you ahead.

When You Can Be Denied or Disqualified

Being fired doesn’t automatically end your claim. Arkansas separates poor performance from misconduct. Falling short of production goals or struggling with duties isn’t misconduct unless the employer proves the poor performance was intentional, though repeated failures after progressive discipline can qualify.⁹

There are two tiers. General misconduct — violating workplace behavior policies, ignoring a known written rule, or willfully disregarding the employer’s interests — disqualifies you until you’ve worked at least 30 days in employment covered by an unemployment compensation law. Serious misconduct covers dishonesty, drinking on the job, being under the influence of drugs or alcohol at work, harassment, insubordination, and willfully violating safety rules. It disqualifies you until you’ve earned wages in two separate quarters totaling at least 35 times your weekly benefit amount.⁹ Absenteeism counts as misconduct when you were terminated under a written attendance policy, whether or not the policy assigns fault for the absences.

Refusing a job offer while collecting is also risky. Arkansas generally treats part-time work as suitable unless the majority of your qualifying weeks in the base period came from full-time work.² If you were mostly a part-time worker before, turning down a comparable part-time offer can cost you your benefits.

If You’re Denied: Appeals

If your claim is denied or your weekly amount is reduced, you have 20 days from the mailing date on the determination notice to appeal to the Arkansas Appeal Tribunal by fax or mail. The clock runs from when the notice was mailed, not when it reached your mailbox. Include the case number from the notice. The Tribunal schedules a hearing, usually by phone, where you can present evidence and call witnesses. Further appeals to the Board of Review and the Arkansas Court of Appeals each carry their own deadlines printed on the decisions you receive.

Overpayments, Fraud, and Taxes

If the Division decides it paid you benefits you weren’t entitled to, you have to pay them back. Collection tools include deducting from future benefits, intercepting your Arkansas state income tax refund, and intercepting your federal refund. Interest of 10% per year starts running 30 days after the first billing statement. Fraud adds a 50% penalty on top of the overpayment, dropping to 15% if you repay in full within 30 days of the determination’s mailing date. You can’t draw future benefits until a fraud overpayment, its penalty, interest, and costs are all repaid.¹⁰ The director can waive a non-fraud overpayment if you received the money without fault and repayment would be against equity and good conscience; financial hardship is one factor. Fraud overpayments cannot be waived.

Unemployment benefits are federal taxable income.¹¹ Arkansas sends you a Form 1099-G by the end of January showing what you were paid the year before, and you report it on your federal return.¹² You can ask for a flat 10% federal withholding from each payment using IRS Form W-4V, or make quarterly estimated payments with Form 1040-ES to avoid a surprise bill.¹³ If you receive a 1099-G for benefits you never collected, that may signal identity theft, and the IRS handles those disputes at irs.gov/idtheftunemployment.

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
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Justia. Arkansas Code 11-10-504 – Maximum Benefits Payable
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Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. EZARC
8
Arkansas Division of Workforce Services. Arkansas Unemployment Insurance Information Brochure
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Justia. Arkansas Code 11-10-514 – Disqualification – Discharge for Misconduct
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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