Economy
How Clearing Criminal Records Puts People to Work
About 70 million Americans have criminal records, and some of them struggle to find jobs decades after their offense. Advocates of expungement say it levels the playing field—and boosts the economy.
If you live in Kentucky and want to work on a farm, run an HVAC company, or interpret for the deaf community, you’d better not have a criminal record.
Those professions and more than 100 others have licensing restrictions in the state based on a person’s prior convictions, making it hard for even those with minor offenses in their history to get a job. It’s not just Kentucky—every state in the U.S. has some form of employment restriction based on criminal records.