The novel coronavirus pandemic forced many states to impose restrictive isolation policies to curb the spread of the virus, leading many businesses to shut their doors. In Florida, hundreds of thousands applied for unemployment benefits. Only a small fraction, however, are receiving their payments. 

On Tuesday, the state reported 14.2% or 95,000 of more than 660,000 claims filed in recent weeks were being paid. On Monday, the state gave out payments to only 6.2 percent of all unique claims, just under 41,500. 

Florida reportedly paid out a total of $125.6 million since March 15. It included more than $79 million mailed to residents in weekly checks amounting to $600. The payments are part of the Congress' expanded unemployment program in its $2 trillion stimulus package. 


Enhancements

According to the state's Department of Economic Opportunity, they conducted all "necessary performance enhancements" to speed up the process of handing out the financial packages. A spokeswoman said results are expected to improve in the coming weeks. 

In a recent analysis, Florida ranked last with the slowest speed of processing jobless claims. Based on data released by the U.S. Department of Labor, nearly 7 out of 8 residents of Florida are still waiting to have their claims processed, most of which were filed from mid-March to early April. 

More than 650,000 Floridians filed for unemployment benefits since March 15---days before restaurants and bars closed. About a thousand others were unable to submit applications. 

The state's unemployment system has long since been plagued with multiple problems. In October 2013, Florida released its online unemployment portal. Since then, the system has had many occasions of crashes that prevented people from claiming benefits. Residents could not access the online portal. 

A state audit conducted at the time reported numerous system failures. A subsequent audit issued in 2019 showed many of those deficiencies weren't fixed. 

Many unique claims filed since mid-March were found to be duplicates or triplicates. The state has only processed 25.5 percent of 1.6 million unemployment claims. 


Back to paper

Republic Governor Ron DeSantis recently directed the Labor Department to provide paper unemployment benefit forms to residents. The forms could be downloaded from Florida's online portal and mailed in. They could also visit a CareerSource location to receive assistance. FedEx also offers free printing and mailing of the forms.

Jobless Floridians who had problems filing their claims due to an overloaded system will reportedly receive retroactive payments, regardless of when their application was successfully submitted. 

John Satter, Department of Management Services secretary, said Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity would provide the benefits to people who've lost their jobs since March 9. The state will honor all applications as of March 9, the day when their system started experiencing problems. 

Independent contractors and freelancers are also eligible to apply through the existing application system. Self-employed individuals will go through the same process as anyone applying for federal benefits. 

Satter could not give a specific timeline on when people who applied in March would receive their payments. 

"We don't want to over-promise and under-deliver," he said.


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