Kentucky's Troubled Trust Fund

Thanks to a tax cut in 2000 that steadily ate away the state's trust fund, Kentucky entered the recession with just three months of reserves. Even though the fund went insolvent at the beginning of 2009 and has borrowed more than half a billion dollars so far, no tax increase is planned.

This news application is no longer being updated as of February 3, 2011. The historical data is still accurate.

  Bankrupt and Borrowing: Kentucky's unemployment fund is currently bankrupt and Kentucky is borrowing from the federal government.

All States

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Borrowed Amount Unemployment Rate (November) Net Income (December) Avg. Weekly Benefit % of Unemployed
Receiving Benefits
$854.5m 9.9% $-33.3m $290.7 27.0%
National: 9% Rank: 26 of 51 Rank: 28 of 51 Rank: 45 of 51

Unemployment Reserves (millions)

Reporters: You are free to use this data to report your stories. Just remember to credit Propublica. Here's a CSV Download of our unemployment data. (Last update February 02, 2011)

Sources: Google Public Data, Department of Labor, Treasury Department.