Kentucky Hurting While Awaiting Federal Pandemic Aid

In an email, Mr. Paul blamed Kentucky’s economic problems on orders issued by the state’s governor, Andy Beshear, a Democrat.

“The best way for Kentucky to recover is to repeal Governor Beshear’s lockdown edicts that have caused massive unemployment,” the senator said. “I support extending unemployment and paying for it by reducing foreign aid and nation-building expenditures in Afghanistan.”

Unemployment rates in some rural counties are in the double digits. Rates of hunger and poverty, high before the crisis, have soared. Kentucky has lost more than 20,000 state and local government jobs since February, and with budgets crippled by falling tax receipts, officials must choose between raising taxes and cutting services.

“It’s frustrating that our own senator won’t support local governments,” Mr. Wireman, a Democrat, said. “These are extraordinary times, and we need to be taking extraordinary measures on the national level from our federal government to help folks out.”

Like many rural areas across the country, Magoffin County depends heavily on the public sector. State and local government jobs account for nearly a third of all employment in the county, versus an eighth of all jobs nationally. Elliott County, two counties to the north, is even more reliant: Nearly two-thirds of all jobs are government jobs, including more than 200 at a state prison.

“In many rural communities, state and local government is the major employer,” said Janet Harrah, executive director of outreach at Northern Kentucky University’s business school.

State and local governments also offer “good jobs” — stable, relatively well paid, with benefits — where the factories and coal mines that once served that role have often shut down. Cutting more jobs, Ms. Harrah said, will slow the recovery.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/business/economy/kentucky-economy.html