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…
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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…
The health of of close to 25,000 children in West Virginia is at risk if Congress does not chose to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). As Senator Jay Rockefeller mentioned in today's Charleston Gazette, defunding CHIP could hurt not only children's health but making it harder for families to make ends meet. CHIP is a…
By most measures, West Virginia's economy has finally recovered from the recession. Real GDP has grown by more than nine percent since bottoming out in 2009, the unemployment rate has been steadily declining, and the state finally has as many workers as it did before the recession.But while the economy as a whole has been improving,…
Yesterday, I had the privilege to discuss efforts to raise the minimum wage with Hoppy Kercheval on his Talkline show. Today, Hoppy followed up with this commentary, arguing that raising the minimum wage is bad economics because it wouldn't actually help the working poor. But, the facts that Hoppy cites in his commentary don't really support…
West Virginia's coal-mining families were given a scare last month when Alpha Natural Resources issued a WARN notice, notifying over 1,100 employees at 11 mining operations of potential layoffs. While those layoffs are projected to take place by October, don't expect the number of coal jobs to fall by 1,100 that month. That's because layoffs…
Workforce West Virginia recently released 2013 data on employment and wages that show West Virginia has about 7,000 fewer jobs (on average) in 2013 than it did in 2012. In contrast, two weeks ago the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released state data for real Gross Domestic Product growth that showed West Virginia's economy grew…
Last week, the CDC released new data from its biennial Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS). The YRBSS surveys thousands of middle and high school aged youth across the country, questioning them about a number of health and behavioral risk factors, everything from diet to alcohol use to sexual activity. The survey is large enough…