While the pace of job growth has picked up in Kentucky over the last year, the state’s economy is still yet to recover from the Great Recession and faces longer-trend troubling trends when it comes to job quality. The unemployment rate has been dropping, but so has the share of workers participating in the labor force. Real wages have been falling or declining for workers across the middle and bottom. And job growth has been concentrated in a few counties, while much of rural Kentucky continues to struggle from a lack of opportunities.
KCEP made the following presentation on the status of workers as part of “Bringing It Back Home: A Next Steps Summit on Kentucky Working Families” hosted by the Kentucky Equal Justice Center.