As their pantries empty, Kentuckians seek unemployment help in record numbers

As their pantries empty, Kentuckians seek unemployment help in record numbers

The groceries Angela Williams stockpiled when she lost her job at a Louisville Chili’s two weeks ago were supposed to last longer.

The 42-year-old mother of three has no savings. And she can’t work because that would mean leaving her children with her mother, whose advanced age puts her more at risk for complications from the coronavirus.

As Williams waits for her unemployment application to be processed, she has come to rely instead on the free breakfast and lunch being distributed by her children’s schools. A visit to chef Ed Lee’s Restaurant Workers Relief Program at his restaurant 610 Magnolia has also helped prevent supplies from running out, she said.

“I do worry about the bills that are starting to come in and I worry about the future of course,” Williams said.

Williams is not alone.

Over the past two weeks, nearly 8% of Kentucky’s labor force — or 1 in 13 workers — has applied for unemployment benefits, according to the latest U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday.

For the second week in a row, Kentucky set a high water mark for initial weekly jobless claims at 112,726, more than double the previous week’s total of 49,023 filings.

Jason Bailey, head of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, said Kentucky’s “frightening” numbers showed that job losses from the pandemic were “deeper than many expected.”

Across the country, 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, double the previous week’s similarly record-setting mark. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the previous weekly record for the country was 695,000, set in October 1982.

Kentucky’s neighbors also saw numbers skyrocket for the second week in a row.

In the greater Louisville area, Indiana’s Clark County saw 2,056 people file for unemployment last week, up more than 14 times from the same period a year ago, and Floyd County saw 1,228 filings, a 12-fold increase, according to data posted to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development website on Tuesday. Those numbers have since been removed from the site.

In West Virginia, some 14,166 people filed, about four times the number who did a week before. Ohio saw 272,129 claims and Tennessee 94,492.

Wall Street was expecting news to be grim, but not nearly as grim as it turned out. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted 3.5 million initial jobless claims, with some, including Japanese investment bank Nomura, forecasting more.

In a note to clients Wednesday, Nomura predicted 4.1 million initial jobless claims, adding that the “unprecedented nature” of the pandemic’s shock could mean more readings above 2 million initial filings in coming weeks.

The deluge of new filings can be partly attributed to the loosening of rules on who can claim unemployment benefits in Kentucky and elsewhere.

Among those now eligible in Kentucky are self-employed workers, independent contractors, freelance workers, substitute teachers and child care workers employed by religiously affiliated organizations and nonprofits.

Many such workers are applying for benefits for the first time in their lives. They include 64-year-old Beverly Carter, who ran a home day care center until social distancing rules required her to close last month.

Carter told The Courier Journal that the application process confused her last week, especially after the state at first mistakenly told her she wasn’t eligible. She stopped trying to call Kentucky’s unemployment office after hearing Gov. Andy Beshear tell Kentuckians like her that they’d eventually get paid, she said.

“We’re just waiting like everybody else now,” Carter said.

Part of what makes the numbers frightening to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy’s Bailey is that so far they only include those fortunate enough to make it through Kentucky’s backlogged unemployment system.

“We know many more people are applying now and these numbers will only grow as layoffs cascade throughout the economy,” Bailey told The Courier Journal.

Among those still wending their way through the system is Dennis Gordon. The 42-year-old factory worker was recently laid off after nine months at CTA Acoustics, an auto parts maker in Corbin. When he filed for unemployment benefits two weeks ago, his application was denied because the state’s rules on recent work history hadn’t yet been expanded. He is now reapplying.

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“I’m sure I’m not the only one in this situation,” Gordon told The Courier Journal.

In recent weeks, Congress has passed a series of aid packages designed to bridge the economy past the pandemic. The largest of these, last week’s $2 trillion spending bill, expanded unemployment benefits by, among other things, providing an additional $600 a week to laid-off workers for four months.

With unemployment filings ballooning, Congress likely hasn’t done enough yet to counter “something this deep,” Bailey said.

“We don’t know how long it’s going to last,” he said. “For that reason alone they have to come back.”

By Alfred Miller
Louisville Courier Journal