DeSantis claims billions of dollars paid out for unemployment, while some still wait to be paid

A picture of success?

The Department of Economic Opportunity is showing that nearly all of the 1.5 million eligible unemployment claims have been paid.

Governor Ron DeSantis talked a lot about getting the situation under control, but is it really?

While we’re still hearing from people every day, you say you’re missing three, four, five or more weeks of payments.

Meanwhile, the governor boasted Tuesday about the $7.2 billion paid out to eligible claimants, according to the DEO’s online claims dashboard.

DeSantis also pointed out that Florida saw nearly 200,000 more jobs in May and hopes even more people go back to work this month.

As some of you return to work, you say you’re worried you won’t get all the money you’re owed.

WINK News Investigative Reporter Sara Girard has personally sent more than 10,000 names and concerns to the DEO and the governor’s office and DeSantis says they’re looking at them. But again, he puts at least some of the blame on claimants.

“We’ve tried to, when we’ve heard different anecdotes, tried to reach out and say look. And we have gotten lists, quite frankly, from some folks that probably weren’t vetted because when we looked at the list, some of them had been paid, some of them didn’t have social security or whatnot,” he said.

On Monday, lawyers for the DEO and Deloitte, the company who helped put the unemployment website back in place in 2013, asked a judge to dismiss a class-action lawsuit against them. Judge John Cooper ultimately delayed making that decision.