Rick Scott Wants Mandatory Training For Jobless Benefits

Florida Gov. Rick Scott's jobs agenda for 2012 aims to reduce burdensome regulations for businesses and to increase them for jobless workers seeking benefits.

"Rather than continue to simply pay out benefits for those out of work, Florida must focus its efforts on ensuring that it can offer the most able workforce in the nation," says an outline of Scott's proposal, which the Tea Party champ unveiled Wednesday. "Requiring training as a part of the benefits administration will help Florida lead the nation in creating new jobs."

Earlier this year Scott signed legislation that will make Florida the stingiest state in America for people laid off through no fault of their own. Once the law takes full effect in January, jobless Floridians will be eligible for fewer and fewer weeks of benefits as the state's unemployment rate goes down.

One part of the legislation, which took effect in August, has required unemployment claimants to participate in an "Initial Skills Review" for job search assistance. The review is an online test that includes reading and math questions. Claimants have to "complete" the test but not "pass," according to an Agency for Workforce Innovation document.

Scott's proposal describes training as the "next step" in reforming the state's unemployment system. The key initiative will require "unemployment recipients who fail basic job skills testing to enter a workforce training program to learn those basic skills in order to continue receiving benefits."

In addition to boosting requirements for jobless seeking benefits, this year Scott required welfare recipients to submit to drug tests. The same policy, modeled on Scott's example, has been proposed in several other states.

The National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group, supports job training programs for the unemployed, but the organization won't take a position on Scott's proposals before more details are revealed. NELP senior staff attorney George Wentworth said his organization views the previously-passed law as the most "comprehensively awful" of the unemployment reforms enacted in 10 states this year. Wentworth said requirements that the jobless apply for benefits online and submit the names and addresses of places they sought jobs every week amount to barriers that restrict access to benefits.

"We have a big access issue in Florida," Wentworth said. "The changes in the law have made it much more difficult for Floridians to file for benefits, and the initial skills review is part of that story."

There are no details about how the program would work. A Scott spokesman did not immediately provide additional details about the proposal.

Comments

[floresfamily9]

04:34 PM on 11/05/2011

Train for what? Fast food jobs? janitorial jobs? How to use a cash register? Does not say. And what if you go thru this training and there are no jobs that match your training? Then what? Pretty vague. And given his lack of compassion, not holding my breath will be much help to anyone but the people (companies) he hires to provide the training. I am pretty sure he knows someone...

[Rasputin66]

01:08 PM on 11/04/2011

What about those who do not have internet access? What about those who, heaven help them, can't read? The South has relatively high rates of illiteracy.

[kcin]

11:06 AM on 10/16/2011

So, if you don't have a computer and an Internet connection, it must be pretty hard to qualify for benefits.

[bola47]

09:59 AM on 10/16/2011

the st. petersburg times and the miami herald websites allow you to post comments to articles about governor scott using many nicknames common throughout florida. huffpo censors those nicknames out. wonder why?

[rjhuntington]

08:52 AM on 10/16/2011

Who's going to pay for the training, Governor?

After the revolution, wingers like Scott will fade into the ash heap of history. Good riddance to bad polity.

[kcin]

11:09 AM on 10/16/2011

A better question is, who will benefit financially from this?

Scott's drug testing policies created business for a company he used to run, and still has financial ties to. This just sounds like another way to funnel public funds to private enterprise. Perhaps he has a connection to this industry as well.

[golffanatc]

08:49 AM on 10/20/2011

In situations like this, I don't care who benefits from the money provided to do the training, the real benefit is to the person who gains a new skill and hopefully an employment opportunity. Sitting at home doing nothing, but collecting unemployment checks is no longer acceptable (and never should have been). Receiving any public funds should never be acceptable without having to do something for them. The welfare system is so broke in this country, both broke as in no funds left to pay them and broke as in it's effectiveness. If you want my tax dollars, you have to do something for it and going back to school to earn new skills is not a hardship.

[Topps]

07:49 AM on 10/16/2011

Florida provides the least in every category if one is temporarily in need.There's nothing wrong with good training that will actually get you employed.However I am sure time will prevail the real reason for this. Scott will be the only one to reap a reward or advantage.

[xzwq]

08:43 AM on 10/16/2011

"Nothing wrong with good training that will actually get you employed"

Tell that to all the jobless college-degree holders. They got training, and then got nothing.

This is just more pro-business anti-people b.s.

[Ystorm]

10:24 AM on 10/16/2011

college degree does NOT mean someone can actually work. all it means is that someone paid to go to school, and did. everyone knows that a college degree does NOT translate into reality. all it means is that someone did homework (mostly) and showed up to class (kinda). their training cannot and will not actually be something that is transferable to the real world. i worked since i was 16, and now that i am nearly 48 i am going back to school. the stuff i am learning really has little relevance to the working world. also many of the 'degree holders' don't want to get their little hands dirty.

[ReLynn]

10:37 AM on 10/17/2011

The key is good training. That means learning skills for an occupation that will actually exist a decade from now and that pays a wage that a person or family can live on. There are "key sectors" such as healthcare and information technology that go unfilled because there are not enough skilled workers to fill them.

[Whitemellon]

07:17 AM on 10/16/2011

Are those jobs numbers all part time XMass hirers?

[Edward Goodwin]

06:16 AM on 10/16/2011

I especially like the part where all those unemployed layabouts will have to wear blaze orange jumpsuits, be drug tested three times a day by having blood drawn from behind their eyeballs, and spend a minimum of 14 hours a day scrubbing Walmart parking lots...with toothbrushes!

Oh.....he wasn't gonna make that part public, was he? Oopsie...My bad.

[xzwq]

08:45 AM on 10/16/2011

Typical Conservative view of the world.

"Well, of course we want all people to get a job. We just want to make it extremely difficult for them to get one."

"Of course we want all people to get out and vote. We just want to make it extremely difficult for them to vote."

"We want all people to have their freedumb. We just don't want people that believe in different things than us to have freedumb."

[diveguy99]

05:19 AM on 10/16/2011

Let me guess - Rick Scott owns a chain of private schools that teach basic skills.

[Ystorm]

10:25 AM on 10/16/2011

my sister's kids went to school in florida and we all know that their schools do not have the same rigor as a lot of them in the northeast (or anywhere not florida). so if skills are lacking, then perhaps parents need to step up to help negate this stuff in the first place. and tell your kids to man up already and stop acting like thugs.

[floresfamily9]

04:40 PM on 11/05/2011

Not sure where your "sister's kids" went to school in FL, but I live in FL, my kids go to school here, and they are not "thugs". I am from the NE, went to public school and college there, and am pleased with the education my children are getting from their teachers. Not sure what "you know", but there are plenty of bad schools everywhere, including the NE. However, not all states have such narrowminded, selfish governors.

[Jcaesar319]

04:44 AM on 10/16/2011

Depending on how the training is handled whether through a community college or apprenticship program rather than some freebie work for no pay idea on a temp basis and what training is offered this could be a good thing. Knowing Scott's record however , I am sure when the details emerge this will be another one of those Great for Corporate america giveaways , bad for the average citizen plan that Scott seems to love to embrace .

[ljmck]

02:27 AM on 10/16/2011

The only "people" who will benefit from Rick Scott's training program are the CORPORATIONS selling the training!

You don't imagine he's putting the money into public high schools or colleges do you?! He definitely won't be putting the money into community colleges! It will be a cold day in Hades before he supports public education. He loves corporate education though.

Are you aware of how much corporations have moved into schools? That they are selling teacher "training" programs (that are a joke) across the country? They have teachers spending hours every week out of their classrooms and in these expensive programs. This is where your tax money goes -- to corporate designed training programs, rather than to actual educators. It's about corporations moving into public education!

In China, where the state was the corporation, they used to call such training programs "re-education."

This is just another corrupt politician making the world safe for corporate greed.
.

[xzwq]

08:48 AM on 10/16/2011

Yep. Let's teach you how to be good little s.l.a.v.e.s -- oh, whoops, I mean good employees. My bad.

[Ystorm]

10:26 AM on 10/16/2011

the article said nothing about corporate training. maybe some of the slackers could go to a public library and take it upon themselves to learn something.

[ljmck]

02:04 AM on 10/16/2011

When people like Scott talk about workers and mandatory training, they are trying to build a predicate against unions and against regulations that protect people from evil products and even worse working conditions. They want to remove regulations that protect our environment and the air we breathe. They are also trying to make it acceptable for companies to move overseas.

Politicians like Scott work for corporations, not the people of his state. They work for big money. Period.

Remember that most politicians today answer only to big money -- international corporations. They care little about what happens to ordinary people in this country (or anywhere else). They seek to align themselves with big money and are only looking out for their current political position and influence and for their future alliance with a corporation once they are out of office.

Corporations around the world are making record profits, paying their senior people obscene amounts of money, avoiding taxes, making a killing on Wall Street, paying lower and lower wages, withdrawing benefits, and driving ordinary working people into poverty.

Under the programs of the Rick Scotts of this country and his corporate allies, the entire world will soon be "third world" -- without power and without the resources to fight back.

OCCUPY WALL STREET -- wherever you are!

.

[Ystorm]

10:27 AM on 10/16/2011

occupy wallstreet is funded by terrorists (iran) and lobbyists (unions).

[drini]

04:16 PM on 10/16/2011

Take a look (if you dare) at some of your purported "terrorists" and "union" lobbyists!

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com

[ljmck]

01:44 AM on 10/16/2011

PUT RICK SCOTT OUT OF WORK

[SithWillRiseAgain]

10:45 AM on 11/04/2011

I never wanted to employ him in the first place. Just take a look at him......He frightens me.

[CaBrit]

01:28 AM on 10/16/2011

I'm curious what training would be available, but judging by where the "job creators" are sending all the jobs, Chinese would have to be required.

[Taj Snead]

01:22 AM on 10/16/2011

What happen to small govt

[ljmck]

02:10 AM on 10/16/2011

The size of government is not the problem -- the size of corporations and the size of their influence on our politics is!

[xzwq]

08:50 AM on 10/16/2011

It's the same small government that criminalizes m.a.r.i.j.u.a.n.a users and refuses rights to g.a.y.s.