U.S. States Balk at Providing Data on Jobless-Benefits Denials

Colorado’s labor department wanted $13,608 for the data, then declined to provide it for privacy reasons. Wisconsin’s begged off, claiming it was overwhelmed with unemployment claims. New York took eight months to respond with a request for an additional 90 days.

These were just some of the responses to open-records requests from Bloomberg News to all 50 states for demographic data about the recipients of unemployment benefits in the year after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Only one state, Georgia, provided anonymized data for all claimants -- and that took weeks of negotiations. Texas and California provided aggregate data. Most found excuses not to comply.