Florida residents attempting to check on the status of their unemployment benefits application or payments have limited hours to do that because the Department of Economic Opportunity take the CONNECT website down to the public on weekends and overnight to process a large number of claims.
The CONNECT system is used to process applications and payments by the DEO. Due to the sheer number of unemployment claims since mid-March, 1.7 million and counting, the DEO is using nights and weekends to work on sending payments and processing applications faster, according to Gov.
Ron DeSantis. DeSantis said because the CONNECT system "was totally shot” the state considered building a new site but that would have taken a year.