Thousands of Florida workers may need to reapply for unemployment benefits

Florida — Thousands of Florida workers seeking federal unemployment assistance now need to refile their claim.

Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity now says anyone who filed a claim before April 5th and was denied state benefits needs to refile in order to be eligible for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program.

This applies to all workers who applied before April 5th, including those who file W-2 tax forms.

This is because of a Florida state law that requires unemployed individuals to re-apply at the start of a new quarter.

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Anyone who applied on or after April 5th will be notified to complete additional questions.

Dozens of people have contacted Action News Jax for help. If you take a look at the state dashboard, you can see between March 7th and April 4th there were more than 16,000 claims in Duval County alone.

Action News Jax is still pushing the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity for answers for the local workers denied state benefits who appear to be eligible. The department won’t discuss specific claims and tells us there could be several reasons why, including quote “wage base period issues, lack of wage history, among others.”

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