Unemployment disaster a failure of leadership
Like so many people throughout Florida, my family is hurting because of the coronavirus crisis. As a single mom of three daughters and a criminal defense attorney whose practice has come to a grinding halt, my financial security is wobbly at best.
But my family’s struggles pale when compared with the more than 1 million Floridians who have filed unemployment claims, many falling victim to our state government’s failure to process those claims on time, if at all.
My anger builds every day as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration calls for “patience” as Floridians either wait for benefits that are long overdue or are rejected without explanation.
Since coronavirus began its rampage across Florida three months ago, these so-called leaders have offered little action and plenty of sappy apologies to the hundreds of thousands of desperate, unemployed citizens waiting for the emergency money designed to keep them and their families from financial ruin.
Even worse, according to one report, 1.1 million people placed calls to the state Department of Economic Opportunity in March and 85% of those calls were never connected to someone who could help them.
DeSantis, who finally ordered an investigation on Monday, says he suspects the online system might have been purposely designed to fail under the previous administration of Rick Scott. If he’s right, this symbolizes a much deeper crisis confronting Florida’s growing workforce dominated by lawmakers such as state Rep. Scott Plakon, who lined up to help Scott slash unemployment benefits in 2011.
I urge DeSantis to demand that the Department of Economic Opportunity set up regional help centers throughout Florida to serve out-of-work citizens who have been rejected for benefits or have yet to penetrate the state’s broken computer system.
What’s more, the state Inspector General appointed to unravel this mess should not limit the investigation to a faulty computer system alone. It also should cover any connection between today’s train wreck and the actions by Scott and his cronies to cut unemployment benefits that already were among the lowest in the nation, reducing them from 26 to as few as 12 weeks.
As the Orlando Sentinel pointed out in an editorial a few weeks ago, Scott could not have created this disaster without the complicity of lawmakers like Plakon. He voted for it. And in doing so, he was happy to do the bidding of Florida’s corporate captains who have rewarded him handsomely through the years.
So let’s call him and his legislative colleagues what they are: part owners of the mess that has become a focus of outrage and ridicule throughout the nation. These lawmakers dismantled an already stingy unemployment system that is designed to deny millions of Florida workers their benefits.
Unfortunately, this assault on working-class Floridians should surprise no one who has paid attention to the actions of elected representatives who are supposed to look out for them. I’ve watched these political predators decimate funding for public education, drive thousands of teachers from the state, refuse to expand Medicaid to nearly 800,000 working-class Floridians, try to force welfare recipients to submit to drug tests (a Plakon bill declared unconstitutional) and plunder the environment.
No more excuses or calls for patience. We need action. Now. When Scott, Plakon and other lawmakers gutted unemployment benefits — stripping away the barest safety net that provided some measure of financial support for furloughed workers — they knowingly put millions of Floridians who live paycheck to paycheck in harm’s way.
Today, we can see the results of their actions in the faces of hundreds of thousands of Floridians who don’t know how they’ll feed their families next week. That’s not leadership. That’s an outrageous disregard for the health and safety of us all.