A 35-year-old system of filing for unemployment benefits is
due to change in Florida. There is a plan in place to make it completely
virtual, by having everyone complete online applications to apply for the
assistance. It was renamed as the Reemployment Assistance program in Florida,
and is set to go virtual in October.
This can be an improvement to their process, which currently
takes about 6 weeks from the time the claim is filed to the time the first
payment is made. Currently a part of their process is a confirmation from adjudicator,
which happens either by phone, email or mail. After switch to the online method
of filing they can potentially rely mostly on online chat, email and phone.
This may be used to speed the process up.
There are a few concerns in regards to this change, first is
accessibility. The argument is that not everyone has a computer at home, and
this may create a barrier for the people that are more disadvantaged on the
economic scale, which presumably are likely a large part of the customers of
this particular program. This is supported by the research findings of the PEW
Research Center:
It’s evident that people that will be impacted by this
change are the people with a lower level of education and people with lower
income. These are the same people that
may be working at the jobs that are at risk, or jobs with higher level of
turnover. 
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