Florida waits for word from feds before issuing unemployment checks again
The Monday after Christmas, unemployed Floridians got a glimmer of hope, after President Trump had signed into law the congressional relief package that would extend their jobless benefits. But that feeling soon turned to confusion when they logged onto the website the state uses to handle claims.
Because Trump sat on the bill for a week, the supplemental unemployment programs Congress passed earlier in the year ran out on Dec. 26, and residents’ claims were labeled as expired or ineligible, momentarily halting a significant lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people who lost jobs to the pandemic.
Now, it’s unclear when those federal programs will start up again and whether Floridians will have to reapply for benefits or if the extension is automatic. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, which administers checks, couldn’t say. Paige Landrum, a spokeswoman for the DEO, said it’s waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Florida was also late in carrying out the programs when they were first created by Congress in March.
“While the department has been working diligently on these additional benefits, it must first receive guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor before changes can be fully implemented and payments can be issued, as was the case when the CARES Act was initially enacted,” Landrum said in an email.
The $900 billion relief package, which passed through the House and Senate almost unanimously, extended the amount of time claimants can qualify for federal programs by 11 weeks — including a program that served self-employed and part-time workers ineligible for Florida’s state benefits and another that lets workers collect beyond the 13 weeks allowed in Florida.
According to a dashboard the DEO updates, 743,052 people have been approved for the extended weeks and 772,177 for the program for self-employed and part-time workers.
The package also revived federal unemployment payments, but there’s a chance Trump’s delay in signing could cost Floridians some of that money. The bill called for Americans to receive $300 a week for 11 weeks — half of what Congress approved back in March.
It also provides $600 stimulus checks to most Americans and billions of dollars for loans to support businesses.
“There are not a lot of answers right now,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat who’s been helping people collect benefits and navigate Florida’s hamstrung unemployment system known as CONNECT. “There’s a lot of just confusion because folks logged into their accounts and it said ‘expired.’”
For Kerri McCullen, a 42-year-old living in Port St. John, it was over the weekend that she began hearing rumblings that federal unemployment benefits may not continue. For a single woman who was laid off from her job at Patrick Space Force Base, that carries meaningful consequences.
Since losing her job, she’s been donating plasma to help pay bills. One donation session can get her about $75. She’s also managed to get food from a local pantry and begun selling handmade wooden crafts of Florida wildlife at local markets.
Luckily her home is paid off, but she said keeping up with homeowner’s insurance, utilities and her car payment has been difficult.
“I think it did hit me hard last night when I realized my unemployment could be cut off,” McCullen said.
She’s also among the countless Floridians whose unemployment applicants were held up for months at the start of the pandemic. She said she waited 10 weeks for her first check to arrive. At one point in April, the DEO had paid out only 4% of the 850,000 applications that had been submitted by suddenly jobless workers.
McCullen said it took calling the DEO multiple times a week, only to be kept on hold, and emailing the governor’s office, although she never received a response.
State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, another Democrat from Orlando, lambasted the inaction from the Department of the Labor, the DEO, Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Losing even a week of benefits, he said, is extremely significant for individuals and families struggling to make ends meet because of the pandemic, noting that thousands have fallen behind on rent or had to turn to food banks.
“The idea that the administration wasn’t able to craft this guidance so that states could immediately implement the benefits is not acceptable and speaks to how the Trump administration and the DeSantis administration have never prioritized direct relief to unemployed workers,” Smith said. “If it was a priority, it would already be taken care of. We would have a much smoother and a much less chaotic extension of benefits than we’re having right now.”
At this point, McCullen said her only option is to wait and hope.
“That’s all you can do,” she said. “I’m not going to beat down the door of the unemployment system and be on hold and go through that hoopla again. Because those people don’t know anything.”
