Grim unemployment numbers
There was bad news Thursday from the jobs market, as roughly 3 million Americans – including almost 50,000 Kentuckians – filed for unemployment last week, labor department data shows.
The grim tally shatters the previous weekly record of 695,000 in October 1982, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Kentucky’s total of 48,847 unemployment filings last week is an 18-fold increase from the previous week’s total of 2,785. The number could rise again as more businesses are forced to close amid efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, which as of Wednesday night reached 198 confirmed cases in the Commonwealth and five deaths.
Meanwhile, as the federal government inches closer to passing an historic $2 trillion coronavirus relief package, Kentucky’s U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie said he plans to vote “no” on the bill, citing concerns about the ballooning national debt.
“If it were just about helping people to get more unemployment (benefits) to get through this calamity that, frankly, the governors have wrought on the people, then I could be for it,” he said in an interview Thursday morning with 55 KRC radio.
The Republican congressman also suggested he could slow passage of the bill by objecting to a voice vote in the House, which would force his fellow lawmakers to head to D.C.