(WSVN) - Florida Democrats want Tallahassee lawmakers to meet in special session to tackle the state’s unemployment debacle.
Nearly two million people in the state have applied for benefits since the start of the pandemic, but only 740,000 have received the financial assistance.
Democratic state lawmakers say the Department of Economic Opportunity, which is responsible for providing the aid, needs legislative overhaul.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, said, “Nobody’s going to remember the invasion of COVID and who was governor at the time, but they are going to remember when they’re about to lose their home, when they’re about to lose their car, when they face their children and can’t feed them and can’t clothe them and can’t house them.”
State Senator Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, said, “It’s wrong to pay people the basic minimum that you can pay them. These are not people who don’t want to work, these are people who have been laid off. Now it’s multiplied since this pandemic, but it wasn’t right then.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he doesn’t see a need for a special session of the legislature, though he has ordered an investigation into the state’s troubled unemployment website, which by his own admission has failed to do what it was designed to do.
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