West Virginia Public News Service – West Virginia’s economy is still weak, and much of the energy-extraction growth has shifted north, according to the annual State of Working West Virginia report. Read
The southern coalfields continue to experience declining production, said Ted Boetner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, who helped write the report. Much of the growth in natural gas and expanded health-care coverage is taking place farther north in the state, he said, and isn’t replacing what’s being lost.
“While West Virginia’s economic recovery has been assisted by strong growth in the natural gas industry and the expansion of health coverage from Medicaid,” he said, “wages remain stagnant; unemployment remains elevated.”
