Florida jobless assistance claims drop to new pandemic low. State still fighting fraud.

Rob Wile
·1 min read

Amid still-rising counts of jobless assistance claims flagged for fraud detection, Florida tallied its lowest level of new unemployment applications since the outset of the pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that the state saw 16,100 new claims for the week ending Feb. 20, down from 21,564 the week before. It is the lowest new-claims count since March 14, 2020.

The lower count may be the result of fewer claims being officially counted as they are verified as legitimate.

Nationally, new jobless claims fell 111,000, to 730,000. That’s the lowest level since November and well below the 845,000 forecast by economists for this week.

Florida continues to see a stream of jobless claims that it must investigate for fraud. Thursday morning, the Department of Economic Opportunity’s unemployment dashboard showed 48,219 claims that had been flagged as potentially fraudulent, up from 41,524 one week ago. A department spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

If you are aware of any instance of Reemployment Assistance fraud or believe you are a victim of Reemployment Assistance identity theft, visit FloridaJobs.org and navigate to the Reemployment Assistance Service Center, click “claimants” and visit the fraud page.

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