Florida’s unemployment system has been a dumpster fire for the better part of a decade. It denies benefits to those who earned the...
Florida’s unemployment system has been a dumpster fire for the better part of a decade.
It denies benefits to those who earned them. (Fewer than 15% of unemployed workers often receive benefits at any given time.)
It provides some of the chintziest and shortest-lasting benefits in America.
And the state’s $78 million online application system is a malfunctioning boondoggle that makes carrier pigeons look efficient.
All of this has been well-documented. By watchdogs, the media and even the the state’s own auditors who documented “630 outstanding defect tickets related to technical system errors” last year alone.
But many Florida legislators didn’t care … until recently anyway.
Like when Sen. Joe Gruters — chairman of the Republican Party of Florida — learned his own mother couldn’t get her unemployment check.
Suddenly, Gruters — who has been in office since 2016 — cared.
And demanded answers.
Suddenly, Gruters wanted somebody in jail.
“My own mother has tried to file over 100 times without success,” Gruters told Florida Politics after tweeting about the system’s cost and declaring: “Someone should go to jail over that.”
Never mind that hundreds of thousands of Floridians also had encountered problems dating back to 2013.
Now that Joe’s mom couldn’t get her hands on a check, Florida had a five-alarm fire on its hands.
This is Florida’s capital in a slimy, self-interested nutshell.
It is a run by many people who simply don’t care about problems that routinely hose the little guy … until they or someone they know are personally affected.
What a primitive path to enlightenment.
$77 million? Someone should go to jail over that. twitter.com/lmower3/status…
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This particular problem became too big to ignore after the coronavirus crisis set in and hordes of laid-off Floridians couldn’t access benefits they had earned.
The online application system repeatedly kicked out applicants. The phone lines worked no better. One state document said workers fielded only 2% of the calls that came in.
But know this: The system was designed to fail.
It was created in 2011 by former Gov. Rick Scott and GOP legislators who wanted to cut benefits so Florida businesses could pay less in unemployment taxes.
Their scheme worked. By 2015, Florida ranked No. 1 in denying benefits ... and 50th in unemployment tax rates.
This cartoon originally ran on September 5, 2012.
Watchdogs sounded the alarms with headlines like 2013′s “Jobless-claim process breeds frustration” and 2015′s “Most of Florida’s jobless don’t get benefits.”
But back then, GOP leaders didn’t care, because the people getting hosed were just work-a-day Joes.
Not special interests nor deep-pocketed lobbyists.
Not their moms.
And let’s be honest: Most Floridians didn’t care either back then. Because it wasn’t their problem … until now.
But now that gobs of Floridians are losing out — especially since Floridians can’t get federal unemployment money from the stimulus package until they are approved by the state — Gov. Ron DeSantis finally decided to act. He ordered more servers to process applications and more humans to handle calls.
Good. It’s way overdue. Problems and delays are still expected. But good.
If you don’t believe Ron DeSantis did the right thing, just ask Ron DeSantis. His P.R. team sent out a press release Monday full of quotes lavishing praise on the governor for his “extraordinary efforts” and commitment “to promptly connecting Floridians with the benefits they need.” (Not promptly last year ... when his administration was told of the problems. But promptly this year ... when those problems became a political liability.)
DeSantis supporters also began running a whisper campaign that this wasn’t really his fault.
“It’s a sh** sandwich, and it was designed that way by [Rick] Scott,” one unnamed “DeSantis advisor” told Politico.
That’s true. But it was also true for the first 15 months DeSantis was in office, including a solid year ago when the auditors told the DeSantis administration it should fix them.
Sure, Rick Scott cooked up this “sh** sandwich.” But DeSantis seemed happy to keep serving it to his constituents … until the political pressure got too intense.
Ron DeSantis - featured here on election night 2018 with his wife, Casey, and supporter Lev Parnas behind her - has now said he knows the state's unemployment system is a mess. State audits told him that more than a year ago.(AP)
In fact, while Team DeSantis was doing spin control and Gruters was talking about his mom, I went back and re-read the March 2019 audit.
It talked about the “630 outstanding defect tickets related to technical system errors.” It warned that “incorrect error messages continued to exist.” And it noted that some users were locked out of their accounts and not notified within the recommended two-day period, but instead up to “376 days late.”
All of it spelled out in black and white more than a year ago.
You know, many of the world’s political problems come from both sides of the aisle. I often make the point that both Democrats and Republicans have their share of bad ideas and embarrassing members.
But let’s be clear: This particular problem — an unemployment system designed to stiff laid-off workers out of money — is completely at the feet of Florida Republicans. They created the mess, blessed the mess and ignored the mess … until now.
I attempted to ask Gruters why this was, asking in an email why he hadn’t become outraged about six straight years of well-documented problems until his own mother was denied benefits.
He didn’t bother responding.
Probably because he knew there was no good response.
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