Rural Kentucky, and eastern Kentucky in particular, is no stranger to extraction. For a long time, coal was king in the region, providing jobs and prosperity to hardworking miners while limiting economic diversification and extracting untold wealth and resources from the mountains. When profits fell, the industry contracted, leaving behind stagnant economies that forced many to move away in search of a better future.
Now, Kentucky’s coalfields face another extractive threat as Congress and the new administration move to blow up vital federal programs that provide much-needed resources to kids, families and the elderly across rural Kentucky.
Congress made the threat clear in February when the House narrowly passed a framework for a new federal budget that aims to partially offset the cost of enormous tax cuts for the wealthy by slashing spending on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Cutting these programs would harm all Kentuckians, but especially those in rural Kentucky. And the 5th Congressional District would be hit hardest. Running from Boyd County in the north, across the state’s eastern border and down to Wayne County, Kentucky’s 5th District has one of the highest Medicaid enrollments in the nation, with 44% of its population, or 316,450 people covered by Medicaid. Shrinking this life-saving program will not only make it harder for many to see a doctor, it will also harm local economies, which see $1.35 to $1.80 in economic activity per dollar invested through Medicaid – an investment that, by itself, comprises over 13% of the district’s GDP.
Similarly, SNAP is good for both families and business, helping more than 575,800 Kentuckians with their food budgets and resulting in almost $1.3 billion spent on groceries at more than 4,700 Kentucky food retailers in 2024. Proposed restrictions on SNAP come at a time of rising food insecurity, higher grocery prices and increased natural disasters in rural communities that are already suffering through high levels of food insecurity. In fact, Kentucky is home to 10 of the nation’s 25 worst counties for food insecurity (Breathitt, Clay, Harlan, Knox, Lee, Lesley, Letcher, Magoffin, Owsley and Wolfe).
Attempts to shrink the federal workforce will also disproportionately impact rural Kentuckians. The 2nd Congressional District, home to Fort Knox, has the state’s highest share of federal employees, while the 5th District is next, with 2.8% of all workers in the area employed by the federal government. Indiscriminate reductions to this workforce cost jobs and makes vital services difficult to access, especially for the 370,000 Kentucky veterans who rely on them.
Public education is an even more significant employer in rural areas and the cornerstone of many communities. But it is under assault at the federal level, as the Department of Education is dismantled brick by brick. Federal education funding contributes more than $1 billion annually to Kentucky for school meals, low-income students, children with disabilities, educator training and other essential services. And because it is especially targeted to kids with the greatest needs, it is most important in higher-poverty districts, most of which are rural in Kentucky.
There’s a reason rural Kentucky relies so heavily on this federal funding. Kentucky workers’ blood and sweat generated enormous wealth, but it was largely extracted and not invested in growing resilient local economies or strengthening infrastructure. Now jobs are scarce, and unemployment and disability rates are high, but a saving grace has been the funding for health care, food assistance, employment and education that the federal government provides. They don’t deserve to have that ripped away too.
This column ran in the Lexington Herald-Leader on April 1.
