Florida hits grim milestone: Over 1 million workers have filed unemployment claims
Florida has now reported over 1 million unemployed workers, a bleak milestone as the state continues to lag on processing a massive caseload.
According to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, the state has received 1,025,657 unique unemployment claims as of May 3, and has so far paid 452,526.
With a population of 21.5 million people, Florida’s deficient unemployment system has been slow to catch up to the growing number of workers who have been laid off or furloughed due to the coronavirus pandemic emergency. The online application system under an understaffed agency has been riddled with glitches since the number of jobless Floridians first began to spike in early March.
The promise of financial relief to Florida’s jobless workers has been so delayed that lawyers have filed at least one class-action lawsuit asking a Tallahassee judge to order the state to immediately pay the unemployment benefits. They’re asking in part to have the suit extended to hundreds of thousands who have waited over a month for their checks.
Others have protested the system and have demanded immediate changes.
Still, of the nearly 1.8 million unemployment claims submitted, 38% have been denied, or about 268,000 workers. FDEO said that workers who have been denied financial aid are likely eligible for benefits under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. Those denied include gig workers, independent contractors and self-employed workers.
The state’s queue of claims that are in the process of being verified has reached nearly 300,000. Some Democratic lawmakers have denounced the lengthy verification process as a time-consuming burden on the ability to quickly issue checks.
Meanwhile, some of the hardest hit workers continue to be hospitality and tourism employees, whose industries have been nearly halted by mandatory closures throughout the state. On Monday, restaurants, stores and state parks are set to open in most of the state for the first time in weeks as part of Florida’s phased-in reopening. The concentration of COVID-19 hot spots in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties has largely excluded South Florida from the reopening measures.
This story was originally published May 3, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
