Unemployment woes a mounting strain on Donald Trump in Florida
Lorin Lynch outside her home Monday in Wesley Chapel, Fla. When the tourists stopped coming, so did her paychecks from a Tampa Bay hotel. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Lorin Lynch
Will frustration over Florida's unemployment system sway November voters?

When the tourists stopped coming in March, so did Lorin Lynch’s paychecks from a Tampa Bay hotel. She burned through her savings while awaiting financial relief from Florida’s unemployment office.

It took nearly three months before the 26-year-old single mother finally got a check.

Even as Florida reopens for business, Lynch is still fuming over an unemployment system that was among the country’s slowest to respond to the economic calamity triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Department of Economic Opportunity statistics show that about 40% of the 2.2 million claims it received remain unpaid.

Even with unemployment checks now arriving, Lynch said, “I’m honestly terrified about how I’m going to feed my son each day and what’s going to happen next.”

That frustration is a problem for Florida Republicans as they try to again secure their state for President Donald Trump. Trump’s path to winning reelection is exceedingly narrow without Florida’s 29 electoral votes. The broken unemployment insurance system raises the prospect that thousands of out-of-work Floridians will bring their anger to the voting booth in a state where races are decided by the slimmest of margins.

“I’ve been a Trump supporter, but I’m kind of questioning everything,” said Lynch, who voted for him in 2016 when she lived in Minneapolis. She was initially impressed by his business acumen, she said, but is now questioning his leadership in crisis.

Much of her anger is directed at Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally. DeSantis has acknowledged that the unemployment system known as CONNECT was like a “jalopy in the Daytona 500” being “left in the dust.”

To stem criticism and the political fallout, DeSantis beefed up staffing and ordered additional servers to help rescue the beleaguered system. He claims the system is now functioning and blames user error and fraudulent claims for some of the unpaid benefits.

As of Wednesday, DEO data showed more than 880,000 claims remain unpaid, while 1.2 million Floridians have received unemployment benefits totaling nearly $5 billion.

In Washington, the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, has asked the Labor Department for an internal investigation. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, recently assailed the system in a TV interview.

“We have to make the unemployment system function, and your state isn’t very functional,” he told WFTV in Orlando, taking a shot at DeSantis. “And that relates to management of the system.”

Florida’s unemployment woes add to the troubles for Trump five months from Election Day. Polling shows social unrest, the pandemic and the economic fallout have eroded his support among older people and in key battleground states.

Democrats in Florida have been handed a cudgel, said Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida associate professor who co-wrote “Politics in Florida.”

“There is a large pool of voters who might have their votes swayed because of this issue. The question is how many,” Jewell said.

Protesters tried to draw attention to the system’s woes Wednesday by holding rallies in Tallahassee, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and other communities.

Some of the hardest-hit counties lie along the state’s crucial Interstate 4 corridor, stretching from Orlando to Tampa Bay. In Orange County, home to Disney World, nearly a fourth of the workforce lost jobs. In nearby Osceola County, about a third of workers are unemployed.

Hundreds of thousands of Floridians in the Democratic strongholds of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties were also left reeling by job losses, and Democrats have begun highlighting the unemployment fiasco to boost party turnout.

Florida, like other states, has begun lifting the restrictions that caused its economies to sputter and unemployment to surge. In April, Florida’s unemployment rate hit 12.9%, up from 2.8% in February. Figures for May haven’t yet been released.

“It’s one of those things where once the issue is solved, it’s going to disappear,” said Florida Republican Party chairperson Joe Gruters. “I don’t think anybody ever expected the wave of unemployment applications at the same time the way it did during this crisis.”

Gruters’ mother was among those who couldn’t get an unemployment check.

“Someone should go to jail over that,” Gruters tweeted in April.

Trump has blamed Democrats for any “lateness” in payments, saying he “told them this would happen, especially with many states which have old computers,” he tweeted in April. He did not elaborate.

Republicans have since turned to promising a rapid rebound. “They’ve already built the best economy in Florida’s history once, and they will do it again after they are reelected this November,” the Republican National Committee said.

But Democrats aren’t likely to let it go. They’ve sought to cast the issue as the result of a long-standing Republican effort to weaken the social safety net in Florida.

They point to changes made under the previous governor, Rick Scott, who won election to the U.S. Senate in 2018. Under his watch, Florida cut the number of weeks people could collect benefits and put it on a sliding scale — from 12 to 23 weeks — depending on the state’s unemployment rate.

Claimants in Florida currently get aid for up to 12 weeks — tied with North Carolina for the shortest period of any state.

Other changes made it more difficult for some to apply, including by eliminating paper applications and stiffening the required proof that recipients were actively looking for work. Critics say the changes were aimed at reducing payments, as well as artificially deflating unemployment numbers.

Carolina Nunez is registered as a Republican but in recent years has supported Democrats. When she lost her paychecks in March and struggled to claim benefits, she blamed Republicans.

So did her husband, Chris Kee, a sheriff’s deputy in central Florida, who voted for DeSantis in 2018 and for Trump in 2016.

Despite uncertainty spawned by the coronavirus and anti-police brutality protests, Kee and Nunez are sure of one thing: They won’t be voting for Trump in November.

“We hear one thing coming from our governor and people who share his views, saying everything is fixed,” he said. “But everyone else who is going through the system, or is trying to receive benefits, is saying otherwise.”

___

Republished with permission from The Associated Press.

Bobby Caina Calvan

Bobby Caina Calvan is The Associated Press reporter in Tallahassee.


4 comments

  • Ocean Joe

    June 11, 2020 at 10:51 am

    Lines of cars waiting for food, longer than the breadlines of the Great Depression. The failure to take Covid-19 seriously from the start and to listen to experts has led us to this. The built in trap set by Rick Scott made known to DeSantis, ignored. “Nobody could have expected this” becomes the standard excuse. You plan for contingencies or you get voted out. People having to hide food from their children so it will last longer is not acceptable. We fix this in November.

  • ItsTimeforTruth

    June 11, 2020 at 12:03 pm

    The nonsense doomsday prognostications of Democrats continue. The Republicans have made Florida one of the most desirable places to live. There is more work to be done but when one is asked the question which party represents the the values and issues most important to the voter here’s a simple comparison and the clear choice.

    Republicans want to get this economy going again so that this fantastic economic engine can roar again, and jobs, businesses and all people will thrive.

    Democrats want to dismantle the police, open our borders to anyone, create economic stagnation through the same government restrictions that have created this mess, cozy up to a one world order that supports China, WHO, and the fascist mobs who have looted, burned and destroyed businesses by the thousands.

    Republicans remind you that we are all Americans.

    Democrats remind you that we are all victims unless you are successful.

    Republicans support every individual’s ability to succeed in business and in life without government oppression.

    Democrats support the concept of the government taking the money of the successful business entrepreneur and giving it out in small and inadequate amounts to anyone who wants to be supported by a state controlled system.

    The Republicans achieve their success when people understand the truth.

    The Democrats achieve their results when people believe the lies of a bias and destructive media.

  • Sonja Fitch

    June 11, 2020 at 4:29 pm

    Rich Ricky is the culprit that succeeded in this ploy! Rich Ricky is a knee deep goptrump cult sociopath!

  • Sonja Fitch

    June 11, 2020 at 4:30 pm

    Rich Ricky is the culprit that succeeded in this ploy! Rich Ricky is a knee deep goptrump cult sociopath! Desantis you got your own racist acts with the Felon poll tax for voting.

Comments are closed.


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