I wrote previously that Florida’s unemployment system was the stingiest in the nation, with $275.00 as the maximum weekly payment for only 12 weeks. This has resulted in the inability of the tidal wave of newly unemployed to pay their bills until the COVID-19 passes.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/325186-joe-henderson-ron-desantis-jeremiad-didnt-tell-the-whole-story
The current wave of unemployed includes State Senator Gruter’s mom, who has tried to file for unemployment for two weeks with no luck. And despite Gruter’s status as a powerful state senator and head of the Republican Party of Florida, he is powerless to help. Senator Gruter blames the vendor Deloitte Consulting and says someone should go to jail.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/326481-joe-gruters-on-77-million-unemployment-website-someone-should-go-to-jail
However Sen. Gruter is directing his ire to the wrong person. According to a story in Politico, former Governor and Current Senator Scott and the Florida legislature deliberately re-designed Florida’s unemployment process to fail in order to discourage jobless claims to keep unemployment numbers low after the great recession. The story quotes one DeSantis advisor as saying “It’s a sh-- sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott...It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its-a-sh-sandwich-republicans-rage-as-florida-becomes-a-nightmare-for-trump-1271172
Now, as thousands of Floridians try to access their unemployment benefits, the always problem plagued system crashes or denies them access. Even though nearly 400,000 people have managed to file claims in the last two and half weeks, it is not known how many have tried and failed, except of course Sen. Gruter's mom. But has the crisis faced by the newly unemployed Floridians and their inability to even apply to help them survive moved Republicans to fix the system? No their worry is that all these unemployed who have discovered the failures of the Republican designed unemployment system will vote against Republicans in the 2020 up and down the ballot. “This is horrible for people. I don’t want to minimize that,” one DeSantis adviser told POLITICO. “But if we have to look past the crisis, it’s bad for the president and it’s bad for the governor.”
I urged before and urge again when the legislature meets for its anticipated special session to address the COVID-19 induced budget shortfall it must fix our unemployment system.
- Jim Bonfiglio
Democratic Candidate for Florida House District 89