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A Better Kentucky After the Pandemic
While we have been fighting this pandemic, we have also been moving forward to better Kentucky with progress in key areas including providing health care, improving infrastructure and creating jobs in every corner of the commonwealth.
Kentucky is open for business. Even with the pandemic, Kentucky is still recruiting jobs and working with existing companies to expand. Since December, the state has seen 166 new-business-location and existing-facility-expansion announcements totaling nearly $1.8 billion in planned investment with plans to create more than 6,800 new full-time jobs.
- This week we announced Busche Industries Co., doing business as Xtreme Fabrication, plans to expand its existing Leitchfield facility with 25 high-paying jobs in the coming years.
- Chapin International Inc., a manufacturer of metal compressed air sprayers, plans to locate a production operation in Mount Vernon with a nearly $5.5 million investment creating up to 100 full-time jobs.
- Summit Biosciences Inc., a Lexington-based pharmaceutical company focused on nasal spray medicines, is expanding its operation at the University of Kentucky Coldstream Research Campus with a more than $19 million investment expected to create up to 78 full-time jobs.
Since March, we’ve announced more than $13 million in grants across the commonwealth for projects that improve infrastructure, encourage economic development, create training and education programs and improve hospitals and access to health care – just to name a few.
Helping Kentuckians
During this difficult time, we have taken aggressive steps to help Kentuckians.
As of late September, more than 1.6 million Kentuckians have enrolled in Medicaid, more than 1 in 3 Kentuckians. We have added over 250,000 people to receive Medicaid. In a pandemic, it is vitally important for individuals to have health care coverage, which keeps them healthier and helps pay doctors, nurses and hospitals for the services they are providing.
One hundred thousand Kentucky houses have access to food through SNAP benefits, which has been pivotal at a time when many people have lost jobs and children were not in school. Kentucky, through CHFS, is one of the only states, if not the only state, proactively reaching out to folks who were receiving unemployment benefits about applying for other benefits.
This month, we will surpass more than 2 million meals delivered to seniors across the commonwealth since the start of the pandemic.
Other successes during COVID include:
- More than 1.5 million COVID tests administered, a success after limited testing in Kentucky and nationally early in the pandemic due to limited supplies.
- Department for Public Health warehouse now has a complete stockpile with enough PPE for a 120-day surge, another success after Kentucky and most other states had trouble securing enough PPE for frontline workers early in the pandemic.
- We set aside $300 million from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to reimburse local governments for expenses related to COVID-19 and are now being used to help cities and counties in every corner of the commonwealth.
- So far, we’ve distributed more than $120 million to local governments across the commonwealth to pay for PPE, payroll for first responders, meal programs and much more.
Congress needs to pass another round of the CARES Act to help Kentuckians and our fellow Americans. Congress helped local and state governments during the Great Recession and should act again or there will be deep cuts that will slow the economic recovery – hurting more people.
Vote
Make a plan to vote. There are more opportunities and ways to vote than ever before through mail, in person during early voting or in person on Election Day. If you’re concerned about COVID-19, you can go online right now to request an absentee ballot at GoVoteKy.com.
Monday, Oct. 5, is the last day to register to vote. Visit GoVoteKy.com by 4 p.m. local time to register online or click here to find your county clerk's office.
