KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In Missouri, as many as 400,000 people could become unemployed before the state begins a return to normalcy following the coronavirus pandemic, according to Gov. Mike Parson.
“I think the economy’s been hit harder than maybe what most people realize at this point,” Parson said. “If you’re one of those people that’ve lost your job, you get it, but for the majority of the people, at this point, we’re still early on. I think it’s going to take months to recover.”
On Tuesday alone, the state sent around 115,000 unemployment checks to those who have filed for benefits, Parson said in an interview with 41 Action News anchor Taylor Hemness. He estimated there were around 100,000 more checks ready to be sent.
He said he knows that some have had issues filing for unemployment and asked those people to “hang in there.”
“We’ve never had this many people, ever that I know of, file unemployment claims the way they did in such a short period of time,” Parson said.
Parson said that while the state is focused on reopening service, retail and manufacturing jobs, he’s also concerned about agriculture, which makes up a substantial part of the state’s economy.
In South Dakota, one of the largest pork processing plants in the nation had to close after hundreds of workers contracted the virus.
“It’s a real concern to us,” Parson said. “The last thing we need with everything going on with the COVID-19 virus is to have a food shortage.”
Parson said the state has been fortunate so far in terms of food supply to grocery stores and the national food chain.
“But you don’t need major markets going down and processing plants like that to go down, because it creates a shortage that has a long-term effect,” he said. “It’s going to take a while to rebuild that.”
