KY January Jobless Rate Falls Below National Average

WKMS | By Todd Hatton

Published March 5, 2015 at 10:14 AM CST

Kentucky’s Education and Workforce Development Cabinet reports the state’s January unemployment rate has come in at five and a half percent, below the five point seven percent national average. Economist Manoj Shanker with the Office of Employment and Training says after annual revisions, this marks the sixth straight month Kentucky’s jobless rate has been lower than the national number. He says the last time the Commonwealth posted a lower percentage than the U.S. was in 1995. Shanker says it’s reassuring to see strong gains in the job market. He adds that over time, those gains should translate into an increase in wages.

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Todd Hatton

Todd Hatton hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where he got into radio under the auspices of the late, great John Stewart of WKYX while a student at Paducah Community College. He also worked at WKMS in the reel-to-reel tape days of the early 1990s before running off first to San Francisco, then Orlando in search of something to do when he grew up. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Murray State University. He vigorously resists adulthood and watches his wife, Angela Hatton, save the world one plastic bottle at a time.

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