For nearly five months, Angela Terrell never saw a penny from her unemployment payments. She still hasn’t.
She quickly found herself in a financial crisis, relying on family to pay her rent and bills for her apartment in the Little River neighborhood.
“[The Florida Department of Commerce] tells me there's nothing to do but wait and to keep claiming my weeks,” Terrell said in an interview with WLRN.
Terrell is not the first Floridian to experience a long delay in her unemployment payments. According to published media reports and threads on Reddit that discuss information and tips for users of Florida’s unemployment/reemployment assistance program, hundreds of comments say their claim is also “pending adjudication” or under review. The review is only supposed to take weeks, but can last months and drown others in debt.
WLRN repeatedly reached out to the FDOC for comment, but state agency officials did not respond to us. The FDOC oversees unemployment benefits.
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Cindy Huddleston, a senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute, points out that the state has one of the lowest recipiency rates in the country in the percentage of people unemployed who actually receive benefits. Florida also has one of the lowest unemployment benefits and duration — a maximum of $275 a week for 12 weeks.
“We're talking about people who lost their jobs but were not to blame for that loss,” said Huddleston. “We've set up a program in Florida that prevents many of those people from participating and certainly does not provide benefits that are generous enough to meet the bare necessities for your family.”
Because of the limited number of weeks one can receive unemployment payments, Huddleston says the maximum amount that Terrell and others can get paid is $3,300, even if they haven’t received their payments for more than 12 weeks.
While Huddleston does not know the reasons for the unemployment payment delays, she suggests that the impacted Floridians should apply for legal aid to help them with their case.
“If you can't get the Department of Commerce to talk to you, you really do need to reach out to local community groups who might be able to help and to look at your local legal services or legal aid program,” said Huddleston. “Oftentimes, they may be able to at least advise you if not represent.”
No payments since November
Terrell, 65, lost her job as a spa attendant at a high-end condo building in Miami a week before last Thanksgiving. She had been there for a year before the upper management changed and terminated her employment.
Since then, Terrell was supposed to receive a weekly payment of $275 for 12 weeks from the Florida Department of Commerce. But she has yet to receive anything.
After countless tries to get in touch with the FDOC’s unemployment office, Terrell was informed that there was no adjudicator assigned to her claim and that it was pending, even though she was already determined eligible to receive the weekly unemployment payments.
She also learned there were no longer any physical unemployment offices, also known as Career Centers, she could go to in Miami to speak to a representative. Even though she found a website that listed unemployment offices that could assist the unemployed, she described being turned away because the offices were no longer in use.
“The information on the unemployment website hasn't been updated for who knows how long,” she said. “They list a lot of offices where no one answers the phone and you basically have to go there in order to find out that it no longer exists. There's nowhere to go.”
Terrell’s main expenses are rent, which is $1,500 a month, and her phone and electricity bills. In the first month of her unemployment, she informed her landlord that she might be a bit short on rent because she didn’t receive any unemployment payments. Thankfully, her family stepped in to help.
“They've been very generous and helpful,” Terrell said. “Of course, it's embarrassing to always ask for help, especially at my age. But so far, it's very day-to-day and month-to-month. Hopefully, I'm gonna find something and be able to start earning.”
While she no longer fears eviction, Terrell still wonders about when she would receive her unemployment payments. She already reached the maximum amount of $3,300 for 12 weeks of unemployment, even though she has not received anything for nearly five months, making her total over $4,000.
“It's already been determined I'm eligible and what my weekly payment would be,” said Terrell. “So I don't know what the pending issue is and no one's able to tell me what it is.”
“We've set up a program in Florida that prevents many of those people from participating and certainly does not provide benefits that are generous enough to meet the bare necessities for your family.”Cindy Huddleston, on the state's unemployment benefits program
As of April 1, Terrell has found a job as a spa coordinator at a newly renovated hotel on the beach. She starts later in the month.
After an hour on hold with the FDOC, Terrell spoke with an agent who updated her hire information and informed her that she no longer needs to claim weeks. However, she was advised to continue checking her online account regarding the status of her “pending issue awaiting adjudication” message. If the issue was resolved in her favor, they said, she would receive a lump sum payment of 12 weeks.
“[There’s] still no information available on what the issue is or when it may be resolved,” Terrell told WLRN through email.
Three days later, Terrell finally got in touch with an adjudicator for her claim who is currently assessing her case.
Throughout this experience, she thanks her family for their help while she dealt with this financial situation.
“I am so very, very lucky I have family who were able and willing to help me these past FIVE MONTHS,” Terrell told WLRN through email. “I would have been evicted and lost everything without them!”
