The groceries Angela Williams stockpiled when she lost her job at a Louisville Chili’s two weeks ago were supposed to last longer.
Written by Alfred Miller of the Courier-Journal
The 42-year-old mother of three has no savings. And she can’t work because that would mean leaving her children with her mother, whose advanced age puts her more at risk for complications from the coronavirus.
As Williams waits for her unemployment application to be processed, she has come to rely instead on the free breakfast and lunch being distributed by her children’s schools. A visit to chef Ed Lee’s Restaurant Workers Relief Program at his restaurant 610 Magnolia has also helped prevent supplies from running out, she said.
“I do worry about the bills that are starting to come in, and I worry about the future, of course,” Williams said.
Williams is not alone.
Over the past two weeks, nearly 8% of Kentucky’s labor force — or 1 in 13 workers — has applied for unemployment benefits, according to the latest U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday.
For the second week in a row, Kentucky set a high water mark for initial weekly jobless claims at 112,726, more than double the previous week’s total of 49,023 filings.
Jason Bailey, head of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, said Kentucky’s “frightening” numbers showed that job losses from the pandemic were “deeper than many expected.”
(Cross-posted via the Kentucky Press News Service. Read the rest of the article at the Courier-Journal.)
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