- February 6, 2026
A bill that would place additional requirements on the ability to collect unemployment benefits continues to move in the Senate, after a favorable vote Thursday.
SB 216, known as the “Promoting Work, Deterring Fraud Act of 2026,” would revise how the Florida Department of Commerce disqualifies claimants from re-employment assistance benefits. In addition to existing requirements, such as contacting five employers per week, attending scheduled job interviews and returning to work when called by a former employer, the bill would require the department to check a person’s employment and immigration status every two weeks.
“I think they’ve been doing it less often,” said Ocala Republican Sen. Stan McClain, the bill’s sponsor. The goal, he added, is to reduce the number of people receiving benefits fraudulently. During the pandemic, for instance, Florida paid $22 million in fraudulent unemployment claims, according to the U.S. Labor Department. As of December 2025, the state’s unemployment rate was 4.3%, about the same as the national level.
The bill, which passed by an 11-4 vote, also would require the Department of Commerce to publish online activity around fraudulent claims each year. Despite these additional tasks on the department, McClain said “the secretary has not indicated that this would put a greater burden on the department.”
“The biggest challenge that they have is when they do the initial intake of the employee that’s applying for assistance,” McClain added. “Because they’re already doing verification, this just makes it a little more timely.”
He did not cite estimated costs for the additional work or funding to cover them.
Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said that was a problem. “I don’t see an agency analysis that gives a sense of what the impact will be,” Bradley said. “I would love to see an agency analysis on how many FTEs (full-time employees) this will require. Does this require IT upgrades or third-party contracts?”
For Sen. Rosalind Osgood, D-Fort Lauderdale, the big concern was the bill’s potential impact on the state’s elderly population. “Statistics say one in five adults aged 65 and over are working not because they want to, but because fixed incomes are no longer enough,” Osgood said. “[The bill] has stricter job search requirements, harsher disqualification penalties, and expands verification rules that assume that these working elderly people have the same physical ability or digital access, transportation, or health stability” as younger ones.
Rich Templin, a lobbyist for the Florida AFL-CIO, said the current volatile state of the U.S. economy is not the time to make changes to unemployment benefits requirements. “If you look at what economists are saying, we’re in the middle of a big economic shift in this country – whether it’s good or bad, it’s still a shift, and that leads to mass layoff events,” Templin said. “If this bill passes and that happens, there will be people in your social circle, in your church, in your family, that are going to lose their job through no faults of their own, and they are not going to be able to count on this system.”
McClain said the purpose of the bill is to ensure that the unemployment system provides assistance only to those “that absolutely are qualified to receive it.”
“I think that all of us have a heart for people,” he said. “We want to make sure that somebody who’s down and out gets help when they need it, and all of us would reach in our own pockets to help people and do things for them, but I do think that the unemployment system should be for those that absolutely are qualified to receive it, and that we should make sure that they continue to be qualified.”
