TheĀ Orlando Sentinel‘s editorial board criticized Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after he blamed the high number of unemployed people for the state’s failure to pay unemployment benefits.
DeSantis made the remarks in response to a reporter’s question about delays that have affected individuals who first applied for unemployment in March.
āI can tell you that DEO goes through this, and nine times out of 10 the applicationās incomplete. And I think if you have complied in that time period, and your applicationās complete, and you qualify, I think 99.99% of those folks have been paid,” DeSantis said at the time.
His statements prompted a rebuke from theĀ Sentinel: “As if getting laid off isnāt scary enough, as if getting put through the unemployment wringer isnāt humiliating and frustrating enough, Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to start blaming the jobless for the stateās failure to pay benefits,” the editorial board wrote.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
“In other words, the governor thinks the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of people who still havenāt received unemployment benefits to pay for rent and food have only themselves to blame. User error,” they continued. “Not a state unemployment system that was designed to fail and frustrate workers who find themselves out of a job through no fault of their own. A system that, in the year 2020, is asking people toĀ fax information.”
The editorial board goes on to say that it empathizes with DeSantis and his frustration, noting that he “is taking a lot of heat for an albatross he inherited from former Gov. Rick Scott.”
“But weāve reached a new level of tone-deafness when responsibility is shifted from the state to the citizens who desperately need benefits theyāre entitled to,” they say, later concluding that DeSantis:
…probably is right that many of those who havenāt been paid were deemed ineligible to receive unemployment for one reason or another. Whatās mystifying is how DeSantis, knowing better than anyone how lousy and glitchy the stateās system is, can be so confident those people truly are not eligible.
This was a bad moment for the governor. People are hurting. Theyāre scared. Theyāre broke. But DeSantis gets peevish, and sounds like heās totally over answering questions about unemployment benefits.
Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.
