Florida Unemployment

Florida Unemployment, Gov. Rick Scott emphasized the more than 2 percent drop in the state’s unemployment rate in the past year during his speech Friday at The Forum Club of the Palm Beaches.

The unemployment rate in Florida went from 12 percent to 9.9 percent during that time, making it the second largest drop in the nation, Scott said.

Before 710 members and guests in attendance, Scott spoke about education and putting $1 billion more into public schools for K-12. He also said the state needs less regulation and taxes to attract more businesses to the state. His speech lasted 15 minutes.

Scott said he has three priorities as governor: education, jobs and keeping the cost of living low.

“We started the process of reducing business taxes for small companies,” Scott said. “Education we said will be 100 percent for the benefit of children. We got rid of tenure … we allowed for expansion of successful charter schools. We’re starting the process of fixing our pension programs. … And we started the process of getting rid of regulation. It just kills jobs.”

One of the most pressing issues Scott said he is focusing on is the number of fraudulent personal injury protection auto insurance claims. More than $1 billion worth of fraudulent claims are made each year, which is driving up the cost of the PIP portion of auto insurance coverage at a rate of 30 percent a year, he said.

“The biggest thing we can do this year to reduce the cost of living in the state is to get rid of PIP fraud,” Scott said. “We are the number one state for staged auto accidents in the country. They’ll stage an accident so someone can make money off it.”

Scott said he will run for a second term, when asked during the question-and-answer session.

In response to questions from reporters, Scott said he interviewed three of the 11 candidates who have applied to fill the vacancy of Palm Beach County state attorney when Michael McAuliffe leaves the post on March 16. McAuliffe is leaving to work at Bill Koch’s Oxbow Carbon.

Florida Unemployment

Florida Unemployment, Florida businesses are not satisfied with a large increase in unemployment compensation taxes. Taxes have risen sharply over the past two years, because many people have lost their jobs and began collecting unemployment benefits.

Companies are now looking at another big tax increase and are desperately seeking an idea to ease the pain of taxes.

Florida businesses currently pay an unemployment rate of a minimum tax of 72.10 per employee. Just two years ago, that the tax was only 8.40 and an employee.

Now it looks as if that rate could reach 200 and 2012 and is doing business in Florida nervous.

“It will potentially play havoc here in Florida and the Florida employers, when we are trying to get out of this hole we’re in right now with unemployment and terrible economy. Therefore, this will be very detrimental to Florida employers, “said Brewster Bevis of Associated Industries of Florida.

Florida ended up in this situation due to unemployment compensation trust fund went bankrupt in 2009, as it did in many states, due to an increase in unemployment. Therefore, states including Florida have been borrowing money from the federal government to maintain payment of unemployment benefits.

Florida loans from federal and peaked at 2.6 billion. Around one billion has been paid, but the tab and is at 1.6 billion and all this must be paid by companies in Florida.

Gov. Rick Scott says he wants to minimize the impact.

“I do not do anything to raise the cost of doing business in the state. I want to keep it as low as possible, because the work of the impacts. So the most important is employment, jobs, jobs.”

The companies want the state to borrow money to repay the loan so they can pay in installments. Bevis said that the state could create an entity to issue bonds that would be paid by the private sector.

He says Idaho already made, and more states are considering the idea. “We have to look at other ways to take care of this debt and alleviate the pressure on Florida employers.”

The Florida federal government forgave all interest on loans for unemployment compensation made before 2011.

When asked if he would consider asking the feds to forgive those future interest payments, or perhaps the entire debt, Gov. Scott said at least consider the idea – an interesting response considering Scott has already rejected the federal money for high-speed trains and services.