Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research see the state’s unemployment rate in different terms.
Scott has the glass half full when looking at recent lower unemployment numbers, but state economists see it as half empty.
Scott this week dismissed a poll showing his approval rating at 39 percent by referring to the drop in the jobless rate.
“The number that I look at every month is our unemployment rate,” he told reporters. “And as you know, we’re bucking the national trend. We’ve come down 2.5 percent in the last 17 months. I think the federal number is down .8 or .9 of one percent.”
But the economic forecasters with the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research concluded that “75 percent of the drop in the unemployment rate is due to people dropping out of the labor force.” Under that way of looking at it, the decline in unemployment is closer to .3 percent rather 2.5 percent, the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reported this week.
Although Florida’s unemployment rate dropped from 9.9 percent in December 2011 to 8.7 percent in April 2012, state economists noted, “If the participation rate had held steady since 12/11, the unemployment rate would have been 9.6 percent.”
Another possible reason for the decline: that a state law passed last year makes it too difficult for people without work to get unemployment benefits.
In a filing with the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Employment Law Project and Florida Legal Services blasted changes to the application process for those benefits, including the requirement of a 45-question test.
Lawmakers approved the changes in 2011 in what supporters promoted as an effort to make the unemployment system more solvent.
Scott spokesman Lane Wright contended that those leaving the workforce may be choosing to do so.
“How many of those people are mothers who decided they just want to stay at home and let their husbands provide for the family?” Wright asked, according to the Times and Herald. “They didn’t need to work?…How many of those are baby boomers that have retired?”
The reason is it is too hard to file for unemployment benefits; the system is set up to derail the average person. Is Governor Rick Scott lying? Is the labor board investigating? I am underemployed, I have been on the unemployment system and even I have a hard time. Don’t call and ask for help maneuvering the system you will be told no. I plan to go down to the one stop career center to see if they will help as I am told I have to reapply as one week I made 75.00 over my entitlement are you kidding you should try it yourself it is a nightmare, now why would a governor want to punish those who lost jobs due to no fault of their own?
By the way I work prn for the company the governor ran that was also under the fraud investigation and guess what they have just informed full time workers their jobs will be ending at the end of the year! PRN’s are cheaper to hire no benefits!!
I won’t vote for Rick Scott again he is not looking to help my class of people (hard working tax payers) Is the labor board looking into this? I took a prn job because that was all that was being offered to me. I took it rather than sit on my backside waiting for a full time job. I watch the job boards every single day, I apply every single day.
Respectfully,
Anonymous