BATON ROUGE- Louisiana residents receiving unemployment benefits will no longer get paper checks.
    
The Louisiana Workforce Commission says it will discontinue distributing unemployment insurance benefits by paper checks in March.
    
The LWC has issued paper checks since October when JPMorgan Chase stopped providing debit cards for Louisiana state government purposes. The state of Louisiana has since negotiated a new contract with U.S. Bank to provide debit cards for unemployment claimants.
    
Unemployment recipients can either receive benefits through direct-deposit or a prepaid card. The paper check-option for new unemployment claims will end March 13.
    
Claimants who currently receive benefits through paper checks can opt into direct-deposit by updating their payment preferences in their HiRE accounts by March 13. Those who take no action will be automatically transitioned onto a prepaid card.