MIAMI _ Fifty-three days after Congress passed the CARES Act, Floridian Tim Young still waits on jobless benefits. He fits in a particularly uncomfortable niche: people who had exhausted their annual state benefits before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the nation.
Federal emergency funds were set aside to fill this gap, but Florida has yet to put in place a mechanism for Young and others to receive it.
A 49-year-old single father of two teens, Young saw his IT management job outsourced abroad in December. The Tampa resident tried desperately to find work even as the nation was caught in the throes of COVID-19 economic chaos. His 12 weeks of unemployment benefits ran out in early March, and on March 27 Congress passed the CARES Act, which included the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program for those like him who had already exhausted benefits when the economy shut down.
