- September 21, 2018
- Kentucky Center for Economic Policy
- Ashley Spalding
A full 30 percent of Kentuckians are working jobs that pay less than $12.50 an hour; fewer than half working in the private sector have an employer-sponsored retirement plan and just 44 percent have employer-sponsored health insurance. In economically distressed regions, even bad jobs are scarce.
Yet we often hear that the problem facing Kentucky is a lack of good workers. This “skills gap” explanation of Kentucky’s economic situation is not supported by the evidence, but you don’t have to take my word for it. When someone says Kentucky employers can’t fill jobs with good workers, ask “at what wage?”