JOBLESS RATE DOWN: Miami-Dade unemployment eased to 2.7% in April from 2.8% in March, the Florida Department of Commerce reported last week. A year ago it was 2.3%. Unemployment in the county had been rising this year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, ticking up from 2.4% in January to 2.6% in February and then 2.8% in March. All of South Florida showed an easing of unemployment. The region from Miami to Palm Beach had the lowest regional unemployment in the state at 3% in April, down from 3.1% in March. Meanwhile, Florida’s unemployment rate increased to 3.7% in April, the third time it has ticked up this year. The Florida Department of Commerce estimated 410,000 people were out of work in April from a state labor force of 11.203 million. The national unemployment rate in April was 4.2%, up from 3.9% in April 2024.
MOUNT SINAI TRANSIT: Miami-Dade commissioners are to vote this week on a two-year agreement with Miami Beach on funding a fixed-route Mount Sinai Link transit route – so late in signing that the two years will end in November. In the agreement, the county is subsidizing at $245,000 a year the city’s 14-passenger Freebee route from Mount Sinai Hospital north on Miami Beach. The route replaces the old county transit Route 115 that had among the fewest passengers in the county bus network, just six per hour, and was eliminated in November 2023. A community outcry saw the service replaced with the Freebee vehicle. After November, the City of Miami Beach under the agreement is to pay for the route on its own from People’s Transportation Plan sales tax funding.
AIRPORT’S FLIER: County commissioners are to decide whether to approve purchase of 7.4 acres east of Miami International Airport that last year were planned as a site for 1,360 residences. The land would be set aside for future airport projects that the legislation does not pinpoint. The county’s Airport Committee was to act on the purchase last week, but commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez asked that discussion and the eventual vote on the issue go instead before a future commission meeting. It is not yet on a county agenda.
KICKING OUT UNRULY FANS: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a trespassing law that takes aim at unruly sports fans. It includes third-degree felony charges for people who, without authorization, enter or remain in ticketed events of more than 5,000 people. The law, which took effect immediately, was crafted in response to the 2024 Copa America final, an international soccer match at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens that was delayed nearly 90 minutes as thousands of fans without tickets rushed past security.
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