WASHINGTON — The U.S. Labor Department will send $8.3 million to Kentucky to support disaster relief employment in the aftermath of the Dec. 10 tornado outbreak.
The department announced on Wednesday that the allocation would be the first increment of up to $25 million to assist workers who have been dislocated by the wreckage of the series of calamitous storms.
The federal dislocated worker grants are available to those in the eight counties where FEMA has declared a disaster emergency. Those are Caldwell, Fulton, Graves, Hopkins, Marshall, Muhlenberg, Taylor and Warren.
Those eligible for assistance include individuals who are temporarily or permanently laid off as a result of the disaster, long-term unemployed workers as defined by the state and self-employed individuals who became unemployed or significantly underemployed as a result of the disaster.
Dozens of people died in Kentucky as a result of the twisters, and Gov. Andy Beshear said last weekend officials now believe it could cost billions of dollars to completely recover.
The federal grants are made possible due to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which was passed in 2014 with a wide bipartisan congressional majority, including the support of both Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul.
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