Floridians everywhere are losing their jobs right now.
Yet when they file for benefits that might help keep a roof over their heads, they run head-first into a rough reality:
Florida’s unemployment system was set up to stiff them.
Benefits are among the cheapest and shortest-lasting in America, capping out at $275 a week and currently lasting only 12 weeks.
They’re hard to obtain (the state’s application hotline sometimes simply won’t accept calls) and tough to keep (thanks to cumbersome requirements).
In fact, the benefits are so hard to get and run out so quickly that very few unemployed Floridians — only one out of every nine — receive them at any given time.
It’s been lousy for nearly a decade. But now — with the national spotlight burning on Gov. Ron DeSantis as more than a million workers lose their jobs in the tourism industry alone — the governor has finally admitted problems and started issuing executive orders.
Really, though, the system is just doing what it was designed to do … short-change workers.
The reduction of benefits started back in 2011 under Rick Scott.
The state’s unemployment program was already meager. But it needed a cash infusion simply to remain meager. And Scott didn’t want to pester the businesses that pay unemployment taxes with that.
“This governor does not believe in increased taxation,” his adviser told legislators. “So he’d like to focus on controlling the outflow of benefits.”
Controlling the outflow.
Scott’s adviser meant “cutting” … even if he lacked the courage to actually utter the word.
The cuts were also championed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce and businesses that didn’t want to pay as much into this social safety net, as the Sentinel’s Jason Garcia reported. (Irony alert: Today, some of those same industries are begging for bailouts, wanting a taxpayer-funded safety net for themselves.)
Anyway, GOP legislators did as the business lobby instructed, as usual. They cut back benefits. And now unemployed Floridians receive some of the worst benefits in America while Florida businesses pay the lowest unemployment tax rate in America — an average of $50 a year per employee.
They didn’t stop there.
In addition to reduced benefits, Scott’s administration debuted an online application system that didn’t work properly. (At a cost of $78 million … enough to provide individual benefits for 300,000 weeks.)
So, as chintzy as the benefits were, many people couldn’t even access them.
By 2015, it was clear that Scott and Co. had achieved their goal: Florida ranked No. 1 in denying unemployment benefits.
So we had a system that was designed to fail, widely reported as such — and yet nobody really cared.
In fact, that same year, 2015, I wrote my third or fourth column about this screwed-up unemployment system and asked readers the following;
So why should you care?
Well, the odds are you don’t.
Let’s just be honest about it. Most people don’t pay a lick of attention to unemployment benefits … until they need them.
This is the case for a lot of safety-net issues newspapers cover, including the state’s horrible track record of denying benefits to special-needs families. Some children die before aid is approved.
Most people don’t pay attention to any of these programs … until they finally need to use them.
Then, when they try — and learn how poorly they’re run — they suddenly start screaming: “WHY ISN’T EVERYBODY ELSE SCREAMING ABOUT THIS??!!”
Well, a lot more people are screaming right now.
Because suddenly, hordes of desperate Floridians — many of whom have worked hard their whole lives — need help. And they’re learning first-hand that the system wasn’t designed to provide it.
So DeSantis was forced to act. The governor vowed to hire more call-takers and end some of the cumbersome and “perverse” rules lawmakers had put on the program to deny benefits.
Yet Florida is still plagued with stories of citizens unable to even file applications.
Heck, I tried calling the state’s unemployment hotline (1-800-681-8102) five times Tuesday and never got through.
Each time, I was greeted with the same automated message: “All of our phone lines are busy, and we are unable to offer a callback option at this time.”
The line then disconnected.
There was no option to wait on hold. Just: Tough luck, pal.
Really, though, getting the phone answered is just the most basic issue. (Even if Florida can’t handle that.)
DeSantis also needs to adjust the benefits to make them more meaningful.
The $275 a week cap hasn’t been adjusted in more than two decades and can’t even cover the rent for the average one-bedroom apartment in Orlando. Forget food or transportation.
And 12 weeks isn’t long enough … unless DeSantis can guarantee the economy will be humming along again by then. Which he can’t.
Unemployment benefits aren’t meant to be a lifestyle. They are a safety net — one provided to people who earned them by working. But in Florida, they aren’t even that.
If DeSantis doesn’t feel like he has the authority to make those changes himself, he needs to call legislators into a special session.
Theoretically, legislative leaders could do that themselves. But that would require them caring — something we’ve seen absolutely no evidence of so far.
smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com
