TAMPA, Fla. — The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity says it’s paid out $3.5 billion in state and federal money, but there are still thousands of people that are waiting to get the full amount of money they say is owed.
It’s a tale of three family members who all work at the same company with only one getting state benefit checks.
“My sister, she’s been getting paid like clockwork, the full amount, the federal and the state every single week like clockwork,” said Annette Exposito.
Exposito says she and her aunt Katherine Esposito both filed for unemployment toward the end of March. Annette says she got a federal check at the end of April and a state check a few days later.
“Since then I have never seen a state check again. I’ve only gotten three more $600 federal payments and they were consecutive every week on Tuesday’s except for this week,” she said.
Screenshots of her account show her active and eligible but her weeks have been disqualified. Katherine hasn’t seen any money and her weeks also show up as disqualified.
She says a DEO agent instructed her to not only look at the “fact findings” on her CONNECT profile, but...
“She said print all those pages out, every week, and mail it to them,” said Katherine Esposito, dumbfounded.
Both women say getting back to work helping folks book cruise vacations may not be for a while, and they are worried about bills.
“My electric is going to go off, my cell phone’s gonna go off, my car is ready to be repossessed, I have not been able to pay any of my bills,” Exposito said
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