Gov. Chris Sununu said Thursday morning that New Hampshire will discontinue the $300-a-week federal unemployment benefits enhancement before it is due to expire on Labor Day, and it might end in the next few weeks. “We are looking at ending” the enhancement, he said at the Business & Industry Association of New Hampshire’s virtual economic summit. “We ain’t going to wait until September.”

Sununu said he is still deciding when the right time to end the enhancement would be. He said he is “watching the trend lines” to find out the best time to take action, but indicated it could be soon.

He added, however, that he didn’t think that ending the enhancement would ease the state’s ongoing labor shortage, since the state’s unemployment rate is down to 3%.

Sununu made the move two days after the Business & Industry Association sent a letter to him that called on him to discontinue the $300-a-week federal enhancement for unemployment benefits, saying that it “makes it easier for some unemployed individuals to choose to stay at home rather than return to work” and creates an “economic drag.”

It wasn’t the first time Sununu has acted immediately after a BIA suggestion. In April, the organization publicized a similar letter for Sununu to reinstate the requirement that unemployment recipients actively seek work, a requirement that has been in place since the pandemic started.

Sununu announced the next day that he would do just that, starting May 23. If New Hampshire did stop paying the $300 enhancement, it would join at least nine other states that also refused the federal money: Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina and Tennessee. It would be the first Northeastern state and the first state that didn’t vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020 to do so. — BOB SANDERS