WTAP-TV – An expert on budget and policy comes to Parkersburg to talk about whether West Virginia’s economy is rebounding after the Great Recession. Watch.
Ted Boettner is the executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. He came to the Parkersburg City Building Monday night to talk about West Virginia’s economic outlook. He says the job growth in the state is uneven.
Some counties in the Eastern Panhandle and places like Morgantown are booming. He says, most of the state, however, is not seeing an improvement from the Great Recession. He says most jobs that are in the state are tied to natural gas. Those jobs are often temporary.
“When it comes to the pipeline construction, a lot of those people that work there are not in-state. They are coming here very temporarily and they’ll be leaving at some point. So what’s going to happen when the bottom drops out of that? Where are we gonna be? We could, in fact, be worse off. We want to talk about that tonight and try to figure out solutions to build a strong economy in West Virginia where everybody has a chance to thrive,” said Boettner.
