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.
"I am beyond desperate," Young said, describing real-world consequences of Florida's inaction. He has burned through his retirement savings and his daughter's college fund and is now turning to charities for help with rental assistance.
Young wouldn't be in this desperate position if Florida had simply done what the CARES Act allows. The U.S. Labor Department has sent out numerous guidance reports to states on how to set up to receive PEUC money as envisioned, since all such money is funneled through state unemployment offices. All 50 states have signed up, but only 26 are now distributing the federal money. Florida, because it has yet to set up a means to apply, is not one of them.
When you go to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity website, it actually touts the PEUC and directs visitors to the site www.floridajobs.org. There, a separate section details who qualifies for the PEUC and for the past month has teased those in need.
"More information on how to apply is coming soon," the website informs visitors who have been directed there.
Dina Fisher began filing for unemployment benefits in late March, only to find she was ineligible because she'd exceeded her 12 weeks of benefits for the year. Her employer, a South Florida retailer, routinely lays off workers for three months over the hot summer months and she had exhausted her benefits. Six weeks later, she is still waiting on benefits.
Fisher was featured by the Herald in one of its first stories, on April 1, on the state unemployment system called CONNECT. The system crashed under the crush of applicants, putting Florida's unemployed through weeks-long ordeals as they fruitlessly tried to submit claims through a frozen website or call a state phone number that was perpetually busy to obtain a PIN. Although she was eventually able to get the PIN needed to apply for federal benefits, she was resigned to wait for Florida to begin offering the PEUC funds.
Then, suddenly, on May 5 she received two $600 checks, covering two weeks of unemployment, from another federal program _ the one approved by Congress to supplement state unemployment allotments for those who had not exhausted their state benefits. That's particularly valuable to Floridians who must make do with the state's miserly $275 maximum on weekly state jobless benefits.
(This means she will not qualify for the PEUC payments.)
The state still hasn't paid her anything, however, and she been told when it does she will receive only $125 a week, not $275. No explanation for that.
"I still haven't gotten any (state) benefits, everything is pending, pending, pending," she said, noting she is trying to remain in good spirits in the face of the seemingly endless hurdles.
Another Florida resident reached out to the Herald on April 2 seeking help in getting answers about the PEUC funds. In recent days he has finally given up and left the state.
"I had hoped for some temporary help through PEUC. I guess that's not going to happen. I suppose I'll scrape by somehow," said the middle-aged man, who insisted that he not be identified in the story because he is actively seeking employment in other states.
The man tried for more than a month to get basic answers from state officials.
"There is nothing else on the Florida online website to explain whether or not the benefits will be extended for individuals in my circumstance. Absolutely nothing," he complained in the original April 2 email. "I've sent an email to the Florida Department of Reemployment, and that department's auto-responder has sent me a message indicating that my question will be "answered as soon as possible." But I've been waiting for days now and I have received no information about what I need to do or if I am even eligible to obtain extended unemployment benefits."
The Herald reached out to Tiffany Vause, the chief spokesperson for the Department of Economic Opportunity, but she did not return a call and email requesting comment about the PEUC. Similarly, Helen Aguirre Ferre, spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not respond to a request for comment.
It's unclear how many Floridians have exhausted their 12 weeks of jobless benefits before or after stay-at-home orders spread and mass layoffs began. More than 1.4 million workers in Florida filed new unemployment claims in the weeks between March 15 and May 12, but state websites offer no statistics on average duration of unemployment now, or in recent years.
"You can't get numbers out of the department. It is an unknown that is troubling," said Cindy Huddleston, an attorney and senior policy director for the Florida Policy Institute, a center-left research group that advocates for more focused state spending. "I wish I could tell you I had numbers. I am also curious."
Huddleston called problems with the euphemistically named Reemployment Assistance program a "poorly kept secret. "
"It's been something we've been living with for the past decade," she said. "It's been keeping legitimate claimants out of the system for no reason. So it was no surprise. ... Everyone knew it was a problem. There was no will on the part of the agency to fix the system."
One possible explanation is that Florida's unemployment rate has been low for years, so there was no urgency to address problems. Days before last Christmas, Gov. DeSantis announced that November's jobless rate in Florida was 3.1 percent, tying the state's lowest rate in 40 years.
"Moving forward, I will continue to prioritize investments in Florida's workforce and infrastructure to provide continued opportunities for our communities to be resilient and prepared for the future," DeSantis said in a Dec. 20 statement, just months before the collapse of the CONNECT website that the unemployed must use to get their benefits.
