Last week, to many people's surprise, West Virginia's legislature flipped from blue to red with the GOP picking up 18 seats in the House of Delegates and eight seats in the State Senate. It appears that Mercer County State Senator and car dealership owner Bill Cole will become the new Senate President and that current…
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Earlier this week, the state's monthly revenue report was released, which keeps track of the various taxes that make up the state's General Revenue Fund. For October, the General Revenue Fund was up $5 million over the estimate, a pretty good month. This was largely due to severance taxes, which came in at $38.1 million…
In the last post, I looked at the rapid decline in coal mining productivity in West Virginia. This post will show how the decline in productivity has played out over the last few years and how it is has resulted in West Virginia losing coal market share with other coal producing regions. #3 West Virginia…
The 2015 edition of the Tax Foundation's State Business Tax Climate Index came out earlier this week. West Virginia ranked 21st this year, showing improvement improvement over the past several years. And while some in the state put a lot of stock in our rank, we should know by now that the index is nothing more than a…
Want a real scare this Halloween? Imagine having to pay up to ten times more on average for your children's health care. This is the increased cost estimate if Congress does not reauthorize funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), according to a study commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The CHIP program provides…
In the last post, I showed that the decline in coal production was heavily concentrated in the southern part of the state. While there are many factors at play, none is probably more important than this one. #2 lower productivity is at heart of coal decline in W.Va. If you want to understand why West…
West Virginia's coal economy is not what it used to be. In 2013, coal production hit a 30-year low and employment in the industry fell to a nine-year low. While the coal industry and other like-minded people have put most, if not all, of the blame on President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency's "war…
In Sunday's Gazette-Mail, John E. Pauley, the executive director of the West Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, wrote an op-ed making several dubious claims about the state of retirement security in West Virginia and about the proposed Voluntary Employee Retirement Accounts (VERA) program that is being supported by AARP. For…
On November 4th, a constitutional amendment will be on the ballot to allow the Boy Scouts of America to rent out its Summit Bechtel Reserve to for-profit businesses without losing its non-profit property tax-exempt status.The Summit Bechtel Reserve is a 10,600 acre outdoor activity center that hosts the National Scout Jamboree. In addition to hosting…
Last week's release of the American Community Survey (ACS) data contained more than just poverty statistics. It also contained some interesting information about income trends in West Virginia. As we noted last week, one of the reasons poverty has been slow to fall, despite economic growth, is income inequality, with little of the past three decades…