THE UI MORAL HAZARD IS REAL BUT PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUES REMAIN

In a world long forgotten, the last great recession, the great or not so great State of Florida, and its not so great governor hired Hunting Deutsch to head the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, the agency, that manages the state reemployment assistance program.  Reemployment Assistance (also called reemployment assistance insurance) provides temporary wage replacement benefits to qualified individuals who are out of work through no fault of their own. 

This was a posting of mine from 2012. The conditions for receiving "reemployment assistance" require being available for work and actively looking for work.  99 weeks the maximum length of benefits was a long time to receive "reemployment assistance" then and it seems overly generous now.  Or maybe it's not so generous now.

 

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Hunting Deutsch, executive director of the Department of Economic Opportunity resigned abruptly after disclosures that he collected unemployment benefits while traveling in Europe.  Deutsch refused to answer questions saying frankly it's a personal matter.  The former executive director collected benefits for 91 weeks from 2009-2011(some of which) when he was traveling in Europe with his wife. 

He did  however say, "I'm fortunate enough where I've worked for very successful companies for a very long period of time and luckily sold all my bank stocks- most of them at the right time, at the right price and quite frankly did not have to work.  So my wife and I took some time off and traveled a great deal.

The Florida Senate President said it was the right thing to do and Governor accepted the resignation effective effective December 9, 2012.  According to the Miami Herald, his salary at the Department of Economic Opportunity was $140,000 annually. 

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