Your recap of some of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida. The Re-Open Florida Task Force held four meetings on Thursday. The first three focused on every aspect of Florida’s economy broken out by sector. The Final meeting was an executive overview of the Task Force’s work this week. Recommendations to the state are expected today.
After the executive meeting, Lt. Governor Jeanette Nunez suggested to Action News in Jacksonville, that the state is close to making a determination regarding low-risk businesses. She defined as those businesses in which employees don’t come into close contact with each other or customers. She also suggested the state will base decisions on geography-based data. She pointed out the majority of the state’s cases remain in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties.
The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s latest update shows 17% of the state’s claims have now been paid and 31% have been processed. That’s an improvement of about 4% over two days ago and may suggest the state is finally getting a handle on the previously failed process. This comes on back of the latest weekly filings showing 505,000 additional Floridians filed for unemployment over the past week. Lastly, the FDEO also clarified retroactive benefits guidance for those who’ve filed for unemployment since the pandemic began. Anyone filing on March 9th or after will have benefits paid retroactively to the date of their job loss. This after Governor Ron DeSantis recently waived the “one-week” requirement after a job loss to become eligible for benefits.
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