Florida next to last in paying unemployment benefits during the pandemic

Florida officials can’t solely blame Deloitte, the company that built the state’s online unemployment claims system.

TALLAHASSEE — In a finding unlikely to surprise the millions of Floridians who filed unemployment claims this year, Florida was the second-worst state in the nation at paying benefits on time, federal data shows.

Just 36 percent of Floridians who filed for benefits received their first payment within three weeks this year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s a rate so pitiful that only Hawaii did worse.

Like many other states, the coronavirus pandemic crippled Florida’s unemployment system, causing the state’s website, CONNECT, to melt down from the historic rise in jobless claims. During April, May and June, at the start of the pandemic, the state started paying just 28 percent of claims on time.