Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/author/jbennett/)
Jared Bennett is an investigative reporter for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. Before KyCIR, he was a reporter the Center for Public Integrity and a digital producer for WBUR in Boston.
The most recent federal coronavirus relief package finally grants states that option, but it will have no effect in Kentucky. That’s because debt forgiveness still isn’t allowed under state law.
People in rural areas are typically sicker, older and have less access to regular healthcare than other communities.
KyCIR has documented the unemployment office’s hurried steps to make payments quickly as the pandemic shut down businesses in the spring.
As some Republican legislators are unsatisfied with the program’s results and call for it to be defunded, the program’s director says it’s still saving lives.
The federal government set aside $7 billion in 2009 to modernize the nation’s unemployment systems. Kentucky left its portion on the table.
Education professionals can’t claim unemployment during the summer break that started in Louisville on May 31, a caveat the state doesn’t appear to have made clear when it extended benefits to substitute teachers. Subs who continued to file for unemployment after summer break began are now expected to repay anything the state paid in error.
The USPS released the data in response to a lawsuit. Ballots received in Kentucky will be counted till Friday.
The shrinking economic safety net and politics of the moment complicate an otherwise straightforward public health decision.
“These people don’t have that money. They paid for groceries, they used the money,” Sen. Nemes said. “That’s what unemployment is for. When you are unemployed you get your unemployment insurance and you pay your bills so you can get back to work.”
Gov. Andy Beshear acknowledged that Kentucky mistakenly overpaid people who requested unemployment benefits — and advised recipients to save that money.