Year-End Revenues Highlight Importance of Individual Income Tax
Kentucky ended its budget year with General Fund revenues $165.4 million more than anticipated, equaling growth of 5.3 percent from...
Research
Yes, the Minimum Wage Helps Fight Poverty
In testimony yesterday to the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council on raising the local minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, a University of Kentucky economics professor argued against a wage...
Busting a Right-to-Work Myth: Why Unions Need to Cover ‘Free Riders’ in RTW States
Despite misleading explanations from “right-to-work” (RTW) advocates, the point of such laws is straightforward: weaken workers’ ability to band together through unions for better job conditions and pay. The law...
Visual: Who Benefits from Lexington Raising the Minimum Wage?
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council is considering an incremental minimum wage increase to $10.10 per hour for its workers over the next three years. Lexington would be the second city in...
The Safety Net Is Effective at Fighting Poverty in Kentucky, Should Be Protected
More than 800,000 Kentuckians are lifted out of poverty each year by safety net programs including Social Security, SNAP (formerly food stamps) and low-income tax credits for working families according...
Working Family Tax Credits Support Kentucky Moms and Kids
Mother’s Day is a fitting time to celebrate the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), two working family programs that help 296,000 Kentucky mothers make ends...
Visual: Medicaid Expansion Helps, Not Hurts, State Budget
Through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Kentucky expanded Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty line -- or $32,900 for a family of four...
Kentucky’s Lopsided Recovery
Job growth in Kentucky has picked up over the last year, and every county saw a decline in its unemployment rate from March 2014 to March 2015. However, a closer...
What the Research Says about “Right-to-Work” Laws, Employment and Wages
As several Kentucky counties have passed or are considering local “right to work” (RTW) laws, serious research calls the benefits of such laws into question. The best evidence suggests that RTW...
April 15 Isn’t Popular, But Taxes Still Important
Few people like Tax Day. Filling out forms and mailing off checks doesn’t usually inspire reflection on the bigger purpose of taxes. Yet most people can agree on the priorities...