TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – As of Monday, more than one million people in Florida have received unemployment benefits from the state, but those benefits are not meant to last forever.
If you are receiving unemployment from the state but the benefits are about to run out, there’s some good news for you.
The CARE’s package signed into law last month includes a Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.
The 13-week extension program from the federal government is now available for applications on the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s re-employment website.
PEUC is for people whose state unemployment benefits have now run out. The extra benefit could help those who are still without a job stay afloat.
Jonathan Satter, the man in charge of Florida’s unemployment system, promised earlier this month to update the state's website with the federal program.
“We need to build these systems out to meet the federal standards because these are federal dollars but hopefully we'll have initial guidance for people in the next five-seven days,” Satter said -- 25 days ago.
But people are now starting to see the application system for PEUC pop up on their Connect dashboard.
The program offers the same amount an applicant gets in state benefits for an additional 13 weeks. Even with the PEUC program, you are still eligible for the extra $600 you received from the federal government.
If you qualify for PEUC, it should pop up in your Connect profile as an option in the upper left-hand corner of the state dashboard.