{"id":11795,"date":"2021-06-06T12:10:47","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T16:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=11795"},"modified":"2021-06-06T12:10:57","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T16:10:57","slug":"labor-leaders-ask-desantis-to-reconsider-ending-federal-unemployment-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/06\/06\/labor-leaders-ask-desantis-to-reconsider-ending-federal-unemployment-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor leaders ask DeSantis to reconsider ending federal unemployment benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Labor leaders called Thursday for Gov. Ron DeSantis to reconsider his administration&#8217;s decision to end a $300-per-week federal supplement to Florida&#8217;s unemployment benefits, calling the cash a lifeline for approximately 120,000 jobless Floridians struggling to find suitable work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis-1024x555.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-830\" width=\"269\" height=\"145\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis-768x416.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis.jpg 1160w\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity announced last week it would terminate the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments effective June 26, more than two months before the congressionally-mandated expiration date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;&#8221;Why on earth would any governor do this?&#8221; Florida AFL-CIO lobbyist Rich Templin asked during a press conference, noting the payments the administration is halting amount to more than $800 million in federal dollars and thus would have no impact on state finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Business leaders have hailed the premature termination, saying the federal stipend has served as a disincentive for the jobless to reenter the labor market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The argument that we should incentivize people for not working and allow them to make more staying home than they would be to work, that&#8217;s not the American way,&#8221; Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Jim Ricer, who ran a culinary business for 19 years before the pandemic decimated it, begs to differ with that narrative. During Thursday&#8217;s press conference, he described what he said has been his long, unsuccessful search for a good-paying job in his career field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I just don&#8217;t understand why it&#8217;s so one-sided and making us a political issue, not realizing we are humans. We are not just numbers,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Labor leaders called Thursday for Gov. Ron DeSantis to reconsider his administration&#8217;s decision to end a $300-per-week federal supplement to Florida&#8217;s unemployment benefits, calling the cash a lifeline for approximately&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[469],"class_list":["post-11795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-labor-leaders-ask-desantis-to-reconsider-ending-federal-unemployment-benefits"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}