As they struggle to line up unemployment benefits, laid-off and furloughed workers in Florida will continue to get a waiver from requirements that they look for work and report to the state.
The agency processing thousands of jobless claims has extended a waiver from those requirements. It now continues through June 13.
Applicants still must answer questions about their job searches in order for the state Department of Economic Opportunity to process their claims in the in the CONNECT application system operated by the state Department of Economic Opportunity, but it will not affect benefit payments, the agency says on its website.
In an announcement over the weekend, the state also said it extended the waiver of the so-called “waiting week” requirement through Aug. 1.
State law mandated both the work search and waiting week requirements before the coronavirus pandemic triggered the shutdown of most of Florida’s economy in mid-March.
Effective April 1, Gov. Ron DeSantis waived the weekly work searches as part of the unemployment claims application process. The waiver also excused workers from registering with the Employ Florida job site or submitting information about potential employers they contacted each week.
Given the onslaught of hundreds of thousands of weekly jobless claims descending upon the agency and the lack of job openings during the pandemic shutdown, most job searches were superfluous as employers either closed their businesses or dramatically scaled back operations.
Although the governor ordered the state’s economy to be reopened starting in early May, it’s being done in phases, slowing hiring and rehiring.
The so-called “waiting week” has been afixture of unemployment insurance laws around the country, experts say. It was established to give states time to process initial jobless claims, but critics assert that advances in technology make the wait unnecessary. The real reason they’re still in place, opponents say, is that the delay saves states money, especially if workers find jobs before their eligibility to collect benefits expires.
The waiver was important because during the pandemic, applicants had “to wait and sit unemployed for a week before you can receive benefits. Why would you have people just sitting there for no reason?” Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, said in March. The senator said he had asked the agency to drop the waiting period shortly after the pandemic started to slow the economy.
Since March 15, according to the Department of Economic Opportunity, the agency has paid out nearly $3.9 billion to slightly more than 1 million people, It has received more than 2.2 million claims, processing 1,8 million of them.
DeSantis has cited rising payout numbers as signs of progress the state has made in processing claims and paying benefits to long-suffering workers whose bank and retirement accounts have been drying up while they wait for their claims to be acknowledged.
Out-of-work Floridians are continuing to bombard state and federal politicians and the media with complaints that they can’t reach the agency by phone or online without waiting for hours, days and even weeks. DeSantis has countered that the state has hired thousands of workers and transferred state employees from other agencies to help attack the backlog.
But many applicants say that even when they do get through, newly arrived staffers lack answers and don’t know where to obtain them.
One new feature of the agency’s online CONNECT system: a “virtual waiting room” that places inbound clients in a holding pattern until their turn comes up in the queue. It appeared for the first time on Monday according to a Broward County client who has been helping his wife navigate the system. But it still took the better part of the morning to get through, said the man, who declined to be quoted for this article.
In a statement announcing the new room, the agency said it allows people “to reserve their place in line while other claimants access the system.”
When the system was first developed, it was designed for 1,000 concurrent users at a time. Now it can host more than 80,000 concurrent user,, the agency said.
Federal funds available
For out-of-work Florida residents who will soon exhaust their limited state benefits, which last for just 12 weeks, the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program was finally made available by the state late last month, offering workers an additional 13 weeks in federal aid.
The program was among three federal benefits programs created in late March when Congress passed a relief act for workers and businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Although Florida signed an agreement on March 28 to disburse funds, the state had not yet made applications available for the PEUC plan.
Now, residents who qualify for the program — those who managed to get through Florida’s struggling CONNECT system and were deemed eligible — can collect a combination of up to $275 a week for 13 weeks and an additional $600 a week through the federal program for those without work from March 29 to July 5.
Only those still unemployed and whose initial state claims have expired are eligible for the program. Individuals with claims that expired after July 1, 2019, are also eligible, meaning workers who lost their jobs before the coronavirus outbreak and are close to depleting their state benefits can qualify for the federal extension.
But residents who are contacted by the Department of Economic Opportunity will need to apply for it through the state system at floridajobs.org and claim their benefits on a biweekly basis.
Once individuals receive an invitation from DEO, they can log in and click a link on the left side of the website that says “apply for PEUC benefits.”
Once approved, Floridians can collect PEUC benefits as far back as March 29 and until Dec. 26.
It remains unclear how long it will take for the state to process and approve the applications.
Orlando Sentinel staff writer Caroline Glenn contributed to this report.
