‘Designed for us to fail’: Floridians upset as unemployment system melts down

Lynne Reback developed a rote routine while trying to file for unemployment in her home state of Florida: log into the system, watch the loading bar slowly inch across the screen, get kicked out. Then she would start over.

It took three days for Reback to get her application through Connect, Florida’s online portal for unemployment insurance applications. Though it has been almost a month since her application was submitted, it is still “pending” whenever she checks its status.

“I’ve gone on every day since and checked my application status. Just to go on and get logged in takes sometimes 45 minutes to an hour. You have to keep hitting refresh,” said Reback, who was laid off from her job as a bartender at a restaurant at Orlando international airport.

She considers herself lucky. The state at least has her application. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in Florida have been unable to file their unemployment claims because the state’s system has been so clogged.

Residents in the state are reporting a meltdown in its safety net just as the US’s unemployment figures rise to unprecedented levels. Nearly 17 million people have lost their hobs across the US. Officially 472,000 people in Florida filed for unemployment within the last three weeks. The true number, thanks to failing Connect, is much higher. And in this swing state the mess has handed the Trump administration a giant headache ahead of November’s elections.

Florida residents who successfully file for unemployment are eligible for a maximum $275 weekly benefit to compensate for the loss in pay. Congress, in its recent stimulus package, also guaranteed an additional $600 a week starting whenever a person filed their claim.

But a person cannot get either payout unless they have been processed and approved by the state’s system. Unable to file an application, many are left without compensation and fear they will miss out on weeks of essential paychecks. People have been lining up for miles to receive food from food banks.

Florida issued a lockdown on 1 April after the number of positive Covid-19 cases in the state began to climb. All non-essential businesses were ordered to close. Residents were told to stay home and visitors were instructed to leave, devastating the state’s huge tourism industry.

While many other states across the country are facing similar technical issues, Florida’s system appears to be the most hard-hit by the influx of applicants.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, and his administration have been scrambling to increase the capacity of the state’s online system after a massive wave of layoffs. But as people logged on to the state’s online portal to file for unemployment, the system shut thousands of people out.

Furious Florida residents angrily tweeted about their unsuccessful attempts to file their application using #floridaunemployment. “Been sitting on the unemployment screen for a whole week but the website crashes anytime I input my work history,” one Twitter user wrote. “The system is designed for us to fail.”

Last week, the state rolled out measures to control the flood of applications. The state added 72 servers to allow more people to be on the website at once and introduced a second mobile-friendly site. DeSantis said that 750 new call operators were deployed to take calls.

Paper applications were also released online for people to download and send via mail, but dozens of residents lined up at a distribution center, risking exposure to Covid-19 to get paper applications. Some residents told a local news outlet they showed up not for the application, but to ask questions since the hotline was flooded with callers.

Even with the new measures, many residents are still facing problems. Ivette Cruz, who was laid off from her job at a food service company that operates at Walt Disney World, has been unsuccessfully trying to get in her application since 2 April. She has been unable to access the application itself because the system keeps booting her out.

“I could try at one o’clock in the morning, I could try at two o’clock in the morning. I could try at three o’clock, four o’clock in the afternoon. I’ve been trying different times, and it’s so frustrating,” said Cruz.

A delay in payments hurts many families, like Cruz, who have little to no savings.

Cruz is particularly worried about the mortgage on her house. Her mortgage company told her that payment can be delayed for the next three months, but she will need to pay those months in full once those three months have passed.

“It’s not fair for me to wait so long … because their system is overwhelmed and not up to date. They should have known that this situation they’ll be in was going to get crazy,” Cruz said.

The loss in income, with no relief, has also put a strain on Reback and her family as they eat into their savings, which will last the family about a month. They cancelled cable and Netflix and are having to cut back on other expenses, like groceries.

“I have five children that we’re responsible for. I’ve had to call every one of my creditors. I’ve had to call my mortgage company. I have a car loan, I’ve had to call them,” Reback said. “You have to kind of prioritize if this does continue and go on, what can you lose versus what can you not lose.

Florida’s unemployment insurance system was largely considered broken even before the Covid-19 crisis began.

How much unemployment insurance a state offers a person is mandated entirely by the state – the federal government does not have any guidelines for how much support needs to be given. In a state like Hawaii, a person can get 55% of their paycheck each week if they successfully file a claim. In Florida, all claims are maxed out at $275 a week – a ceiling that was set at least two decades ago.

“Florida’s system has been ungenerous for a long time,” said Wayne Vroman, an associate at the Urban Institute who has researched unemployment insurance.

Most notable is the maximum duration that Florida allows its residents to access benefits, Vroman said. After the 2009 recession, Florida decreased its maximum duration from 26 weeks – the standard across multiple states – down to 12 weeks, with a sliding scale that will increase depending on the state’s unemployment rate.

The state also has a strict work search requirement, asking people to prove they have made five contacts with a potential employer a week, while most states ask for one or two.

Multiple state Democrats have called for the state to increase the maximum benefit cap and duration of benefits, but neither the state legislature nor the governor’s administration has made any serious moves to change benefits.

An anonymous DeSantis adviser told Politico there is concern over how the handling of unemployment in the state will have political consequences. “If we have to look past the crisis, it’s bad for the president and it’s bad for the governor,” the adviser said.

Adding fuel to the fire, the adviser blamed the broken system on Rick Scott, a Republican US senator for Florida who served as governor of the state between 2011 and 2019. The adviser did not sugarcoat how bad the situation has become for Floridians, or the Republicans. “It’s a shit sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott,” the unnamed adviser told Politico.