Florida has highest coronavirus-related unemployment in country, study says

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Impacts of coronavirus have devastated the American workforce, but a new study says those impacts have been felt the most in Florida.

More than 30.3 million jobs have been lost across the country, meaning 18 percent of adults are now unemployed.

WalletHub compared 180 cities based on increases in unemployment over the last month, then used the data to rank the most impacted cities by comparing the rise in unemployment.

The report found that Florida had the highest increase in the country this month which was a 7,230% increase in unemployment compared to April 2019.

During the week of April 20, 2020, the study found 432,465 people in Florida filed for unemployment. Only 5,900 filed the week of April 22, 2019.

With the fifth highest increase in the country, Florida has had a more than 4,500 percent increase in unemployment claims since the pandemic began, a problem that as been exacerbated by a problematic Department of Economic Opportunity website.

The state had 1,592,236 unemployment applications between the week of March 16, 2020 and the week of April 20, 2020. That’s compared to 35,215 applications between the week of March 18, 2019 and the week of April 22, 2019

Earlier this week, the Department of Economic Opportunity said Floridians who were denied state unemployment benefits but qualify for federal assistance will need to reapply if they filed prior to April 5.

By last week, only 11 percent of the 1.7 million claims submitted to the state had been processed. According to the Department of Economic Opportunity dashboard, only 108,216 people had received unemployment benefits as of April 21.