Blog

February 25, 2014 by Sean O'Leary
Property Tax Incentives Growing Costly

An article in Sunday's in Wheeling's Intelligencer/News Register highlighted the growing cost of the state's business property tax incentives. The Marcellus Gas and Manufacturing Development Act of 2011 created a special tax preference for manufacturing facilities involved with natural gas liquids products (the famous "cracker bill" was an expansion of this legislation). The tax incentive gives a…

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February 21, 2014 by WVCBP
Pass The Tobacco Tax, Fix the Medicaid Budget

Surprise! West Virginia has a budget problem -- about a $200 million problem, in fact (you can read all about it here, here, and here!).  Oddly enough, Medicaid, which for years has taken the brunt of the blame for anything budget related, has hardly been mentioned in the fervor.  This is especially odd because the…

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February 21, 2014 by Sean O'Leary
Yes, Raising the Minimum Wage Helps Inequality

Today's Charleston Daily Mail includes an editorial in response to the EARN report on income inequality and our recommendation to raise the minimum wage as a tool to combat inequality. The Daily Mail contends that raising the minimum wage is a bad idea for two reasons: one, income inequality isn't all that bad because rich…

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February 20, 2014 by Sean O'Leary
Income Inequality Continues to Grow in West Virginia

A new report from the Economic Analysis and Research Network takes a deep look at income inequality, by focusing on how the top 1 percent in each state have fared over 1917–2011. The report finds that not only is income inequality on the rise nationally, but each of the 50 states has experienced growing income inequality…

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February 19, 2014 by WVCBP
The Obamacare Scapegoat

The Obamacare scapegoat strikes again!  It seems that some businesses have found it useful to blame the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, to make unpopular announcements.  Unfortunately, the most recent attempt to deflect the blame using Obamacare hits my family directly as our daughter's daycare, the West Virginia Public Employees' Daycare, announced yesterday it would…

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February 18, 2014 by Sean O'Leary
How Much Would a Minimum Wage Increase Cost? (Update)

The West Virginia House of Delegates passed legislation that would increase the state's minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $8.75 by 2016. We've already looked at the demographics of who would be affected by the increase, now we'll look at how much it would cost. Using the same method as when we looked the cost of…

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February 14, 2014 by Ted Boettner
Tipped Workers Badly Need Wage Increase

As noted yesterday by the Daily Mail and Gazette, the House of Delegates overwhelming passed a bill (HB 4283) to increase the state's minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $8.75 by 2016. As Dave Boucher carefully notes, the bill also increases the minimum wage for tipped workers from $2.13 to $2.63 by 2016. As I…

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February 14, 2014 by WVCBP
Raising the Tobacco Tax, For Health And Wealth

Bills introduced in both the Senate and the House this session propose to raise the tobacco tax in West Virginia by $1 per pack of cigarettes.  While it is a big increase from the 55 cents per pack today, it would actually only catch West Virginia up to the national average ($1.53 per pack) while…

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February 12, 2014 by Sean O'Leary
Who’s Affected by House Bill to Increase the Minimum?

Legislation to increase the state minimum to will be up for a vote today in the House of Delegates. The bill, which originally gradually raised the minimum wage to $8.50, will now raise it to $8.75. Previously, we showed that an increase to $8.50 would give a raise to approximately 113,000 West Virginian workers. Now,…

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February 7, 2014 by Sean O'Leary
Which is More Expensive – Tax Cuts or Free Tuition?

Last week, we took a look at the total cost of the state's tax cuts of the past few years. According to state officials, cuts to the food tax and business taxes will cost the state $360 million in lost revenue this year, with more than half of the loss coming from the cuts to…

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