In the first months after the federal government began issuing monthly payments of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), West Virginia saw a significant decrease in food insufficiency. West Virginians largely spent their CTC payments on household essentials, with food being at the top of the list, followed by utilities, clothing, and paying down debt.…
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The US House of Representatives recently introduced its version of the Build Back Better plan. Under the House plan, 7.6 million people across the country would gain health coverage. Furthermore, health care would become more accessible to millions of Americans via increased subsidies on the individual marketplace. This plan aims to make health care accessible…
It's Halloween week -- time to get spooky! Who needs ghost stories when you have spine-tingling bars and trend lines? Here are five ghoulish charts about West Virginia in 2021 that will make your bones rattle and your blood curdle. At the beginning of the pandemic, West Virginia lost an unprecedented 101,000 jobs as total…
This blog post, co-authored by the Keystone Research Center's executive director Stephen Herzenberg and the WVCBP’s senior policy analyst Sean O'Leary, was originally published by the ReImagine Appalachia coalition. West Virginia is at the center of the national political storm surrounding the need to invest in infrastructure, in families, and in combating climate change. Notably, West Virginia…
Earlier this week, it was reported that Senator Manchin was calling for a significant weakening of the enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC) as part of his proposal to scale back the Build Back Better agenda. The enhanced CTC is one of the signature programs of the recovery agenda and is already making a significant impact…
Economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed in recent months, as a wave of new delta variant cases has left its mark on the job market. After adding an average of 889,000 jobs per month in May, June, and July, the nation added only 366,000 in August and only 194,000 in September, leaving the…
The Build Back Better Act, currently under consideration in Congress where West Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin will be a deciding vote, would create bold, long-lasting change for West Virginia families, workers, and our state’s economy. The legislation contains landmark policies that will create millions of good jobs nationwide, while also addressing crucial needs in the…
Medicaid enrollment has increased, both nationally and in West Virginia, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent data show enrollment increased in the Mountain State from its pre-pandemic baseline of 489,000 individuals in February 2020 to 587,000 people in June 2021. The reasons for this are twofold: first, unprecedented pandemic-related job losses, which peaked at nearly 16…
The city of Huntington voted earlier this month to eliminate the city's Business and Occupation (B&O) tax for restaurants and retailers, which is expected to result in an annual revenue loss of $2 million. The city is hopeful that the revenue loss will be offset by increased local sales tax revenue. However, this is a…
The combination of tax changes in the Build Back Better bill recently approved by the House Ways and Means Committee would result in a tax cut for the average taxpayer in all income groups except the wealthiest 5 percent in West Virginia, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.…