Jobless Floridians start getting new $300 payments
A month after President Trump established the Lost Wages Assistance program to extend, in part, federal unemployment, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Floridians should this week start receiving the $300 payouts.
By Tuesday, some people had already gotten three checks totaling $900 in retroactive payments for the first three weeks of August, spurring some cautious optimism that LWA will run smoother than the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, which provided weekly $600 payouts and ended July 31.
Countless Floridians say they are still owed thousands of dollars under that program after payments abruptly and inexplicably stopped around Memorial Day. The Department of Economic Opportunity, which has struggled to keep up with the nearly 4 million claims it’s received since the coronavirus pandemic hit, blamed “technology concerns” and said the problem would be fixed in a few days. Months later, DEO could not explain why some were still not getting the $600 payments.
According to a website that’s been tracking the implementation of Trump’s LWA program, 14 states, including Florida, have already begun to disburse the federal money. But other states planned to give out more, including Arizona and Texas that were approved to provide six weeks’ worth of $300 payments.
There’s a chance the program could be extended in Florida if there’s money left over, but for that to happen DeSantis would have to reapply. A spokesman for the governor’s office would not say if DeSantis is considering that.
In all, 34 states have been approved by FEMA to participate in the program; two have applied and are awaiting approval. Only South Dakota opted not to tap into the program, which Trump announced in August after Senate Republicans and House Democrats failed to strike a compromise over how to extend the FPUC program that since April had supplemented state benefits.
To qualify for the program, applicants must attest that they are still unemployed and receiving at least $100 in weekly state unemployment. Floridians do not need to submit another application on the state’s CONNECT website. Workers collecting payments through the PUA and PEUC programs are also eligible.
Not eligible are folks who collect less than $100 in state unemployment — people who made too little at their previous jobs to qualify for larger payments. The cap on benefits was significantly lowered in 2011 at the behest of business lobbying groups and then Gov. Rick Scott. So now, out-of-work Floridians can collect at most $3,300 over 12 weeks, although federal programs introduced after the pandemic struck have enhanced benefits for some.
State Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez and Rep. Anna Eskamani penned a letter to DeSantis last week asking him to “identity and deploy sources of funding” to increase those individuals’ weekly payouts so they also could qualify for the federal program. DeSantis’ spokesman did not address questions about that request, either.
“The Floridians who are not eligible for the additional dollars are arguably the ones who need it the most,” Eskamani said. “It’s important not to forget these folks who were left behind in this.”
DeSantis said the program will provide “critical support” to the more than1 million people in Florida still out of work because of the virus outbreak. In July, state unemployment was 11.3% and highest in the Orlando metro area, at 15.3%.
After initially saying that the program was not an option for Florida, which had already spent or earmarked all of the federal money it received through the CARES Act, DeSantis reversed and told reporters he would sign up for it. In explaining the delay, DeSantis said “no one was anticipating” the president’s executive order and his staff had been working to make sure “we can do it and do it successfully.”
He also said the Department of Economic Opportunity had some “necessary technology changes” to make before pushing out payments. The DEO did not answer questions over what changes had to be made.
There was also a caveat to Florida’s participation.
The way Trump billed the program had states coupling each of the $300 payments with $100 in federal CARES Act money, passed in March as part of a $2.2 trillion relief package. Although Florida was unable to meet that requirement, Eskamani said there was a loophole that made it so as long as those who applied for the program were getting at least $100 in state unemployment, the state could still enroll in the LWA program.
By the time FEMA approved the state’s application on Aug. 29, jobless Floridians had already gone a month without the additional federal payments. Once that program ended, the most Floridians could collect in unemployment was $275, among the lowest payouts in the country.
Rodriguez and Eskamani said that delay cost residents precious time.
“He (Trump) announced this program on Aug. 8. Florida was one of the last states to apply,” Rodriguez said Wednesday during an online news conference with Florida AFL-CIO, a statewide federation of labor unions. “DeSantis and Trump are buddy-buddy, but somehow it took almost three weeks for the state of Florida just apply for the funds.”