Scott Powers
More than three-quarters of Floridians’ claims for unemployment relief processed Monday and Tuesday were rejected, according to the Department of Economic Opportunity.
The two-day period resulted in state officials approving just 2,831 claims for unemployment compensation, while rejecting as “ineligible” 10,762 others, according to the Employment Assistance report posted Wednesday afternoon, the first publicly posted since Monday.
The rejections came as Gov. Ron DeSantis was calling the state’s unemployment compensation application system, run mostly through the CONNECT web-based system, “totally shot” and ordering an inspector general investigation into how Florida paid $77 million for a system that doesn’t work.
Yet while DeSantis and Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter on Monday highlighted the progress they have made in overhauling the system, it churned out some of the most disappointing results yet for Floridians who say they’ve lost their jobs because of the coronavirus crisis.
The effort also came as criticism intensified of the system and the state’s inability to fix it.
Scores of thousands more applications poured in from Floridians seeking unemployment compensation.
Florida sent unemployment checks to just 2,831 new claimants Monday and Tuesday. That’s the smallest increase in paid claimants, by far, in weeks, even among single day reports.
The two-day numbers also present the worst ratio of people approved for unemployment compared to those denied in any report in at least 10 days, by far. Of the 13,593 claims processed Monday and Tuesday, 79% were rejected.
Meanwhile, Florida’s new claims grew by 119,363 applications.
The stack of new claims sometimes grows as fresh applications pour in, and sometimes shrinks in size as state officials sort through it and discard duplicate applications. By the end of Tuesday, there were just over 1.8 million applications in the “total claims submitted” basket. Of those, 1.1 million had been confirmed as unique claims. Of those, about 770,000 had been processed.
The total of unemployed Floridians who received checks increased by 2,831 over the two-day period.
Florida now has approved and paid claims for 481,497 Floridians since the unofficial start of the coronavirus crisis, according to the Reemployment Assistance Claims website.
Floridians now have received more than $1 billion in unemployment compensation since March 15, though most of that has been federal money. The state’s Reemployment Assistance fund has paid out $315 million, and the federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation fund has paid out $702 million.
The DEO indicated it would reply to a request to comment. That is pending.
11 comments
William Williams
May 6, 2020 at 5:45 pm
Pending LMFAO, that means 6 weeks to them
William Benedix
May 6, 2020 at 5:49 pm
i am curious as to what happened to an existing claimant after DeSantis issued an executive order that if it was your time to make a claim, it would do it systematically last week or weekend. The Cares federal benefit didn’t arrive after it had the last two weeks and the state benefit which should have been for two weeks, claimed a payment was made for one week on Monday, May 4 and has not yet arrived into the claimant’s direct deposit. As a side note, for some reason the system changed the claimant’s method of payment from a direct deposit to a debit card without the claimant taking any action. Sadly, there is really no recourse to researching any of this as the system remains unstable, it is impossible to reach anyone by phone and emails are not answered promptly
John
May 7, 2020 at 8:59 am
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance from the Federal Government became available March 27th. Why did it take until April 27th for DEO to begin talking about it and begin processing this?
Jackie Lebeau
May 7, 2020 at 11:38 am
M
t.l
May 7, 2020 at 6:10 pm
Because they want to keep the money.
Daysi
May 7, 2020 at 7:29 pm
I have only received 1 federal cares act check on 4/17 and nothing since. It’s suppose to be every week. They owe me 5 with this week
WMCIS
May 7, 2020 at 10:57 am
I envy those that are being rejected. At least they can be pushed towards the PUA application. I’m still stuck in “pending” and “being processed” limbo. Who are all of these 10s of thousands receiving approvals?
t.l
May 7, 2020 at 6:18 pm
@WMCIS I applied for the first time 3/22/2020 and waited 4 weeks thinking I was approved. Faxed paperwork, 1099’s and my employer filled out a 4 page form as well. I was deemed ineligible. Reapplied again was ineligible , then applied for the PUA it initially said I was eligible…faxed more paperwork. Ineligible again. Reapplied again for the 4th time and so far it now says eligible for regular unemployment which it said i was in ineligible for twice. Going on 2 months without any money. I dont know what else to do.
Mark Holland
May 7, 2020 at 5:42 pm
I moved here from Wisconsin 6 years ago and tried once about two years ago to get “re-employment assistance and found it to be a system that is designed to not pay what you are owed. I finally gave up trying and worked through a labor service because I needed to pay my bills.
I lost my job due to covid-19 and have been waiting over a month and actually had to reapply as somehow my first approved attempt was somehow missing.
It is apparent that the State is doing all they can to sit on money and collect interest and let people suffer waiting for their benefits!
Valerie Sprieser
May 8, 2020 at 10:03 pm
Where is the CARE act money for 1099 people!!!!
The website was promised that it would be up 2 weeks ago!!!!
Totally incompetence from Desantis and it’s administration and the whole Florida Senate and house!!!! Fire the whole d…m lot!!!!
Linda
May 15, 2020 at 1:44 pm
I am self-employed and just got my 2nd Ineligible. I am applying for PUA not regular Unemployment. I originally applied on 3/29, but had to reapply because the quarter changed. Those applications should have been automatically fed back into the system. The latest denial states I didn’t have enough income. For PUA the income for Self-employed workers is different. I don’t know if I need to reapply again under the PUA or appeal the decision. I can’t get through on the 800 number and when I try to send an email inquiry it gives me an error every time. This is extremely frustrating.
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