AP PHOTO Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos describes a GOP-authored bill that would end a $300 unemployment supplemental payment as the measure’s co-sponsor, Sen. Howard Marklein, listens during a Capitol news conference on Tuesday in Madison, Wisconsin.

WASHINGTON — Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week — the latest encouraging sign for the rebounding U.S. economy — just as Republican-led states are moving to cut off a federal benefit for the jobless.

Twenty-two states, from Texas and Georgia to Ohio and Iowa, plan to begin blocking a $300-a-week federal payment for the unemployed starting in June, according to an Associated Press analysis. All have Republican governors and legislatures.

Recipients have been able to receive the $300 federal benefit on top of their regular state unemployment aid. The payment, which lasts nationwide until Sept. 6, was included in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial rescue package.

The states that plan to cut off the federal benefit represent nearly every one that is controlled fully by Republicans. Florida is considering ending the supplemental payment. And Nebraska, which officially has a nonpartisan legislature, has said it will maintain the payments while it evaluates all pandemic-related jobless benefits.

The move is also being considered in two additional states that have Democratic governors, Kansas and Wisconsin, though the Wisconsin governor is likely to veto any rollback passed by the legislature. As a result of the action, about 3.5 million people will have their benefits reduced in the coming months, according to Oxford Economics.

Those cutoffs coincide with a steady decline in the number of Americans seeking unemployment aid, which fell last week to 444,000, a new pandemic low, the Labor Department said Thursday. Jobless claims have now dropped in five of the past six weeks, a sign that the economy keeps strengthening as consumers spend freely again, viral infections drop and business restrictions ease.

In addition to ending the extra payment, most of the same states are also withdrawing from programs that provide jobless aid to self-employed or gig workers and to people who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Among them is Latricia Hampton, who worries that without the $300 weekly federal check, she will fall behind on her mobile phone and internet bills.

“Those smaller bills are what I’m going to have to get rid of,” said Hampton, 40, who lives in Gary, Indiana. “That might not sound like much to some people, but that’s another barrier to me finding work. That’s my kids who can’t do schoolwork at home on the computer.”

Hampton had worked at a hair salon near Gary until last April, when it shut down because of the pandemic. Now, she spends hours a day applying for jobs on her phone but has yet to make it past the interview stage. She also has had trouble finding jobs that fit with her two young children’s schedules, who are 4 and 8.

“It’s not like I can just go pick up a job at McDonald’s, and that’ll solve my problems,” she said. “I have two young kids. They need me, and when I’m not there, they need to be cared for. I’m a working-class single parent. We still need help in this pandemic, not pushed off the edge of a cliff and told to fly again.”

About 16 million people were receiving unemployment benefits during the week ending May 1, the latest period for which data is available, the government said Thursday. That is down from 16.9 million in the previous week, and it suggests that some Americans who had been receiving aid have found jobs.

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said this week that the state will end the federal benefit on June 26. That was unhappy news for Gilbert Cruz and his wife, Marrissa Enloe-Cruz, whose graphic design company in Tulsa has suffered a collapse in business since the pandemic struck.

Both received jobless aid under the program for self-employed. Now, they’re unsure what they’ll do, especially because they’re uneasy about sending their 7-year-old son back to school before being vaccinated.