About two months after federal pandemic aid under the CARES Act was signed into law, Florida is ready to administer aid to those who were unemployed prior to coronavirus-related layoffs. Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, is the federal program that provides up to 13 weeks of unemployment benefits to individuals who have exhausted regular unemployment benefits under state or federal law or have no rights to regular unemployment benefits under state or federal law. Ron DeSantis, to over see the state’s pandemic unemployment surge said on April 30 in a Q&A the Florida DEO was working on being able to administer those benefits. Before this week, people who have exhausted regular unemployment benefits and were told to apply for federal benefits couldn’t find the application on Floridajobs.org because the state wasn’t ready to process those benefits. Since March, more than 2 million unemployment claims have been filed in Florida, according to the DEO Dashboard.

News 6 could not independently authenticate the messages, which Pizzo said he obtained from a call center worker known to him. They are a Disney employee,” the unidentified call center worker wrote in the electronic message. Since late March, DEO has been able to add more than additional nearly 6,000 contact center representatives through our contracted contact centers and our DEO team members. "To understand the volume of calls DEO receives, the week ending March 8, DEO received 28,000 calls and the week ending March 14, DEO received 224,000 calls. "DEO has mandated to all contact center vendors that all contact center representatives should be Floridians.

Since mid-March, Floridians unable to work due to the pandemic have struggled to receive unemployment benefits through the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity website CONNECT or to speak to a human due to the volume of calls and applications. The state has paid more than $579 million in unemployment, more than half funded by federal pandemic aid. “The PEUC program provides up to 13 weeks of Reemployment Assistance benefits to individuals who have exhausted regular unemployment benefits under state or federal law or have no rights to regular unemployment benefits under state or federal law. He said it could be another five to seven days before those applications can be processed through the DEO CONNECT system. More than 266,000 people were declared ineligible and may qualify for federal benefits, according to the DEO dashboard.

On Thursday, two state senators will host a Facebook live with the official overseeing the state’s coronavirus unemployment response. The Facebook live will likely be flooded with questions for Department of Management Services Secretary John Satter. Ron DeSantis appointed Satter to step in and oversee the state’s unemployment surge. The state has paid more than $579 million in unemployment, more than half funded by federal pandemic aid. News 6 will also be listening in Thursday hoping to get responses to many unanswered questions.

UPDATE: In a reversal, the DEO now says some workers need to re-apply for federal benefits at FloridaJobs.org. “They will go through the same process as anyone would for the state unemployment process,” Satter said. New applicants applying for federal benefits will use the same Floridajobs.org and CONNECT websites to apply. Of those who applied weeks ago who qualify for state unemployment, many are still waiting to receive payments from Florida. As of Wednesday, about 17% of Florida unemployment claims have been paid out of more than 682,000 verified claims, according to the DEO dashboard.

After Florida’s botched response to the flood of unemployment claims due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. The governor revealed he appointed Satter to oversee the COVID-19 unemployment response. “I was disappointed in the initial response in terms to the website,” DeSantis said. In the past three weeks, more than 472,000 unemployment claims were filed by Floridians, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. “The unemployment claims process is taking too long: Floridians are struggling and need to receive their money.