JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — When Demetrius White recently lost his job as a $10-an-hour forklift driver, he applied for unemployment benefits to help support his family. The aid will not last as long as it once did: White is among the first people affected by a new Missouri law reducing the duration of jobless benefits. His $200-a-week checks will last no more than three months — half as long as what has typically been available.
‘‘Thirteen weeks, I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job,’’ he said.
States traditionally have offered up to half a year of aid as the unemployed search for jobs. In Massachusetts, the maximum is 30 weeks. But since the Great Recession, eight states have cut the number of weeks that people can draw benefits, while others have cut the amount of money they can collect.
The cutbacks generally are intended to help shore up unemployment insurance trust funds, which went insolvent in 35 states after the recession that began in 2008. Businesses that pay unemployment taxes could save hundreds of millions of dollars.
The White House warns that states are engaging in a ‘‘damaging erosion’’ of benefits. President Obama’s budget plan would require all states to provide at least 26 weeks of benefits while expanding coverage to more part-time and intermittent workers.
The Republican-led Congress appears unlikely to approve the president’s plan. GOP governors and state lawmakers initiated many of the recent cutbacks.
‘‘When there’s more jobs available, it’s kind of common sense — you shouldn’t need as long as a duration of unemployment benefits,’’ said the Missouri Senate’s majority leader, Mike Kehoe, a Republican. Missouri’s new limit went into effect in January, though a legal challenge brought by the AFL-CIO is before the state’s Supreme Court.
Neighboring Arkansas reduced its unemployment benefits to 20 weeks in October. South Carolina and Michigan also limit benefits to 20 weeks. Sliding scales linked to unemployment rates have resulted in limits of 16 weeks in Kansas, 14 in Georgia, 13 in North Carolina, and 12 in Florida.
Some states also have cut the maximum weekly payments, narrowed who can qualify, and increased work-search requirements that can result in delayed or denied benefits if not met.
‘‘We’ve experienced a wave of very drastic benefit reductions,’’ said Claire McKenna, at the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for low-wage workers and the unemployed.
Business groups contend the cutbacks are an appropriate way for workers to shoulder part of the costs of rebuilding depleted trust funds.
At one point after the recession, states owed a total of $51 billion to the federal government to repay loans for unemployment benefits. To recoup that, the US government temporarily raised the unemployment tax paid by businesses in many of those states.
The only states still in federal debt are California, Connecticut, and Ohio.
