The State of Working Kentucky 2024
The state of working Kentucky in 2024 includes good news on jobs but within the context of longstanding economic challenges...
Jobs & The Economy
Kentucky’s Kids Don’t Need Us to Drag Child Labor Laws Back to the 19th Century
When I was 16, I nearly sliced two fingers off my left hand while working at a plastics factory. A tenacious strip of tissue and pins inserted through my fingertips...
The Right to a Break Is Just One of the Worker Freedoms on the Line
Lawmakers in Frankfort set off a firestorm last week when they passed House Bill (HB) 500 through committee, legislation that would eliminate lunch and rest breaks in Kentucky. The bill...
House Bill 500 Takes Away Kentucky Workers’ Lunch and Rest Breaks and Cuts Their Pay
(See this link for information on 2026's HB 500, the budget bill that increases health care costs for state and school employees.) House Bill (HB) 500, which may receive a...
HB 465 Will Further Undermine Worker Protections and Job Quality
Kentucky already has a growing problem with worker misclassification, in which employers inaccurately and often unlawfully treat employees as independent contractors. These workers are deprived of their rights, protections and...
HB 255 Weakens Child Labor Laws and Will Fuel More School Dropouts
Alarming growth in exploitative child labor is already a problem in Kentucky, with violations rising and the state making national news on the issue. A nationwide effort funded by corporate...
Kentucky’s Inflation-Adjusted Minimum Wage Now at Its Lowest Since 1950
Today marks 14 years since the federal minimum wage increased from $6.55 an hour to $7.25. For the dozens of states, including Kentucky, that have failed to boost the minimum...
Three Years of Kentucky’s Jobs Recovery in Four Charts
In April 2020, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic bottomed out the economy, and Kentucky lost 294,900 jobs – or 15.0% of the workforce – in just two months. New...
How Kentucky Can Combat the Growing Scourge of Child Labor
Nearly 100 years after President Franklin Roosevelt called child labor an “ancient atrocity” and took action to abolish it, the scourge of exploiting kids through work is back. Corporate violations...
The State of Working Kentucky 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic downturn reshaped Kentucky’s economy in ways that are still revealing themselves thirty months after the virus arrived in the commonwealth. Part of the story...