The measure would require the Department of Commerce to disqualify individuals claiming unemployment insurance benefits if it finds that the individual failed:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Without good cause to contact the required number of prospective employers per week.<\/p>\n
\u2014 To appear on three or more occasions for a scheduled job interview without notifying the prospective employer of the need to cancel or reschedule.<\/p>\n \u2014 Return to employment when recalled to work after a temporary layoff.<\/p>\n Additionally, the Department would need to verify every two weeks that claimants are living, not incarcerated and not employed.<\/p>\n Existing state law requires those on unemployment to contact five prospective employers for each week of a claim. In small counties, a claimant must contact at least\u00a0three prospective employers for each week.<\/p>\n McClain introduced the legislation to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Transportation, Tourism, and Economic Development by saying that there are somewhere between 450,000 and 460,000 job openings in Florida and about 30,000 individuals receiving unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n He said the measure would help crack down on fraud in the system. Over the past two Legislative Sessions, advocates for this legislation have asserted that, since 2021, the Department had prevented $32 billion in attempted fraud, although no such report has ever been made public.<\/p>\n When challenged about that statistic by Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky of Boca Raton, McClain acknowledged, \u201cIt has not personally been verified to me by the Department.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo report exists,\u201d declared Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat. \u201cI asked for the report as it was presented to us in the last committee. No report exists. It is a talking point.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department did not respond to a request by the Phoenix for documentation verifying that assertion.<\/p>\n During the COVID pandemic in 2020, Florida\u2019s unemployment system experienced a massive breakdown, leaving hundreds of thousands of people<\/a> who had lost work unable to collect benefits after the state\u2019s old CONNECT unemployment website collapsed.<\/p>\n Rich Templin, director for politics and public policy for the Florida AFL-CIO, said Wednesday that he and other advocates had warned lawmakers about the fallout from a mass layoff event, when he said the unemployment insurance system had been \u201cessentially gutted by then Gov. Rick Scott.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf every 100 people who apply, only 9 to 10 actually receive benefits, because of all the barriers we\u2019ve put up in the river to keep them from getting there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Richard Jones is secretary-treasurer for the Florida Building Trades State Council and a member of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. He said Florida\u2019s economic growth depends on construction workers to build schools, hospitals, and high-rises that keep the state running.<\/p>\n But he added that construction is also the most \u201ccyclical\u201d industry in the state, and that the proposed legislation would make it easier to deny workers benefits they\u2019ve earned.<\/p>\n He questioned the provision in the bill that would disqualify an applicant if he or she misses three job interviews without notice over one year.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the building trades, hiring doesn\u2019t happen through online interviews,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt happens through dispatch halls, project-by-project calls, and referrals from signatory contractors. Jobs often come fast, sometimes the same day. Our members are not sitting around ignoring interviews. They\u2019re waiting for skilled, trade-specific work that matches their certifications, their training, and the safety standards we enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill would require the Department to investigate new claims with information duplicative of existing claims; scrutinize claims filed from foreign IP addresses before paying any benefits; share claim information with specified state and federal agencies; maintain a web page for reporting violations of reemployment assistance laws; and publish a yearly report.<\/p>\n The GOP-controlled committee approved the bill on a strict party-line vote. Every Democratic Senator commented about why they opposed the legislation, while no Republicans (other than McClain) discussed why he or she supported it.<\/p>\n Quoting Ron DeSantis\u2019 comments from 2020 that the state\u2019s unemployment system had\u00a0\u201cpointless roadblocks<\/a>,\u201d Democratic Sen. LaVon Bracy-Davis of Ocoee asked simply, \u201cWhy are we creating more?\u201d<\/p>\n Polsky referred to the focus the Legislature has this Session on AI, and said that one of the expected fallouts from that advanced technology will be loss of employment among certain white-collar workers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to be facing a deluge of people losing their jobs and we\u2019re only setting the system up to fail and making it even harder for these people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The bill has one more committee stop before hitting the Senate floor. Its companion in the House (HB 191<\/a>), sponsored by Republican Rep. Shane Abbott of DeFuniak Springs,\u00a0has already been approved by the two committees and is awaiting a final vote in that chamber.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Reporting by Mitch Perry. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline\u00a0for questions:\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s notoriously challenging unemployment insurance program may become even more difficult for individuals to navigate if legislation that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3940,2507,28,30,29,63106,22487,63107,63108,63109,30903,63110,2640,63111],"class_list":["post-127597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-2026-session","tag-carlos-guillermo-smith","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-hb-191","tag-lavon-bracy-davis","tag-rich-templin","tag-richard-jones","tag-sb-216","tag-stan-mcclain","tag-tina-polsky","tag-unemployment","tag-unemployment-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FFB-Digital-Ads-728-x-90-1.jpg\")
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