Daily Kos: While McConnell fights aid to states, his own Democratic governor is helping actual Kentuckians
By JOAN McCARTER
While Kentucky's senior senator, Republican Mitch McConnell, is drawing red lines over more assistance to the states trying to stay afloat in the coronavirus crisis, the governor, Democrat Andy Beshear, is making sure the state's unemployed get all the assistance possible. That's led to a third of Kentucky's workforce filing for unemployment, the largest share of workers doing so in any state.
"The state has bent over backwards to build out as much capacity as they could," said Michael Gritton, executive director for KentuckianaWorks, a workforce center in the Louisville area that helps connect people to jobs, education, and training. It also helps them get the unemployment help they need which has been made easier because Beshear has made it a focus. The state has waived both waiting periods and the requirements that people be actively searching for work in order to receive assistance and was one of the first to make sure that gig workers and self-employed contract workers also qualified. "We have the most claims because we have been the most aggressive at trying to help out those that are struggling," Beshear told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.