Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
State Democrats ask Gov. DeSantis to give workers retroactive pay.
As delays continue to plague Florida’s unemployment system, union leaders and state lawmakers are asking Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Department of Economic Opportunity to give workers retroactive pay to the date they were laid off.
The move could ease concerns that every setback in the online system, which has taken some workers days and even weeks to get through, will also translate to lost benefits.
In a letter sent from Florida’s Senate Democratic Caucus to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday, state leaders are asking for immediate executive action from the governor to “help expedite Floridians’ access to the unemployment benefits they have earned.”
Currently, an applicant’s eligibility period begins on the date the worker files an unemployment application, something Democratic senators called an “impossible restriction” due to the website’s inaccessibility. Senators are asking the governor to begin offering retroactive pay for workers who were laid off after March 1.
“You have to recognize that by the time you got through, maybe two or three weeks down the road, you need to be reimbursed from the date that you lost your job,” said Sen. Victor Torres, D-Kissimmee, on a Monday call with workers who are members of the Unite Here labor union in Orlando, while announcing the effort.
In response to questions about retroactive pay Monday, DeSantis said he’s told DEO “to look at that” because “if it’s through no fault of their own where they were trying to get on the system and the system is crashing.”
Ken Lawson, DEO’s executive director, also said the department was considering retroactive pay.
“I asked my team to look at that,” he said. “Bottom line: All options are on the table.”
Since coronavirus started to trigger mass layoffs across the state, unemployment applications have skyrocketed, from 5,325 the week ending March 7 to 226,999 the week ending March 28.
And the state system, which already had a history of inefficiencies, has been unable to handle the load, leading to a website that has stalled for hours or kicked applicants off. DeSantis said Monday the state has a backlog of more than 500,000 applications.
And DEO’s call center has also been overwhelmed, with thousands of workers who previously filed for unemployment calling to reset their PIN numbers before they can start the application — some of them spending hours on hold to no avail.
To address the issues, DEO signed a $17.5 million contract with technical support company Faneuil last week to add 250 workers to its call center for help resetting PINs. The department is adding an additional 100 workers to help it manage the volume, and has made technical improvements to the system. Paper applications are now also available for those who can’t access the system online.
The CONNECT program, which handles the online applications, was also shut down overnight Sunday in an attempt to improve its ability to process applications.
But the relief isn’t reaching workers yet.
“I went in this morning and it’s still the same thing, it still takes it an hour to be able to go through the first page,” said Alejandra Vega Matheu, a server at the Chili’s inside Orlando International Airport who was laid off last month.
Vega Matheu said it was “a fight” for her to get into the application and file, as it’s been for her coworkers.
“It’s been two and a half weeks now since I filed. None of us have seen a penny, it’s just pending,” she said. “… We are basically lost right now.”
The letter is the latest push for worker relief during the pandemic. Last week, the Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation and labor groups also sent a letter to DeSantis requesting other changes, including increasing the number of weeks Floridians can receive benefits up from 12, the current maximum. Most states offer up to 26 weeks.
Local and state leaders are also concerned about the $275 maximum payout Floridians can receive a week through the state system — a figure that hasn’t changed in 22 years. It’s one of the lowest unemployment benefits offered in the nation, a policy of former Gov. Rick Scott’s administration, which lowered the amount Floridians got through unemployment in 2011.
“How can a person live on $275 a week? Doesn’t even make sense with the cost of living today,” Torres said on the Monday call with workers. “‘Hey governor, can you live on $275 a week?’ … Let’s be real.”