Part of Employment Security’s Benefits Data Dashboard down indefinitely

A portion of the Washington State Employment Security Department’s online dashboard is down indefinitely.

The Benefits Data Dashboard would normally show statistics, such as how many Washingtonians are waiting on their unemployment claims to be processed, what percentage of overall claims they represent (with a corresponding pie chart), and the average wait time for benefits.

Right now, however, those statistics and chart are absent.

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An explanation on the page from this past Thursday says this is because of alterations that needed to be made in light of the federal stimulus.

Due to the launch of the new federal stimulus and the changes to the systems, some claimant and processing data needs to be adjusted. We will update the dashboard again once we can ensure data is a true reflection of claimants’ experience. Thank you for your patience as we roll out these new federal benefits.

There is no indication as to when the rest of the dashboard will go online again.

“A key complexity is that [the U.S. Department of Labor] continues to provide additional guidance, which requires ongoing updates to our systems,” the ESD told KIRO Radio in an emailed statement. “We are taking care to be both transparent and accurate as we report this important data and need some time to ensure accuracy as these changes roll out. Once we feel confident that the data accurately reflects claimant and processing information we will republish the dashboard.”

Information about how much money has gone out to unemployment recipients since the pandemic began is still visible.

Before the bottom section of the dashboard went down, the queue of unemployed people waiting on benefits had spiked to just under 40,000. The ESD told KIRO Radio that this did not play a role in the current interruption in information.

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