Florida Unemployment System Deemed Nightmare

From the Florida Phoenix: By Issac Morgan - April 17, 2020

Over 2,000 state employees across state agencies have been assigned to assist with Florida’s troubled employment benefits system, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a press briefing Friday in Fort Lauderdale.

“We’ve now brought in people to man the call center. We’ve expanded call capacity,” DeSantis said.

However, the online system for claimants is down once again, with a Friday message that reads: “CONNECT is down processing payments. We apologize for this inconvenience.”

Many jobless workers in Florida continue to attempt to reach a call center representative to no avail.

The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity system redirects applicants to another portal to register for benefits.

The situation means thousands of jobless workers aren’t able to access their benefits — money needed for food, paying rent or mortgages and other expenses following layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic.

“When we started the system was overwhelmed,” DeSantis said.

The Republican governor also added, “This week we’ve sent out 100,000 payments. So it’s ramping up, we got to continue to do it.”

Job search requirements and claimants’ “waiting week” for benefits have been waived under DeSantis’ latest executive orders.

“The numbers are much better today than they were ten days ago,” DeSantis said.

This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix. For more stories from the Florida Phoenix, visit FloridaPhoenix.com.