Blog

June 6, 2012 by Ted Boettner
Coal Employment (Updated)

As we discussed in a previous post, coal mining employment has risen over the last three years. Today, Workforce WV released job figures for the fourth quarter of 2011 and the annual average of 2011. Included in this release is coal mining employment. The two charts below use this new data to update our previous…

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June 6, 2012 by Sean O'Leary
Raising the Social Security Tax Cap

Last year, legislation was introduced in Congress to apply the Social Security payroll tax to earnings above $250,000, to help alleviate Social Security's long term budget shortfall. Currently, wages over a certain yearly total ($110,100 this year) are exempted from Social Security payroll taxes. Raising or eliminating this cap could help strengthen Social Security's finances, but for…

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May 24, 2012 by Ted Boettner
More Seniors Working in West Virginia

On Friday, Floyd Norris of the New York Times had a piece on the increase in seniors working since 2006.  In West Virginia, we've seen a similar pattern. In 2011, approximately 13.2 percent of those 65 and older were employed compared to just 9.0 percent in 2006. In comparison, in 2011 49.9 percent of all…

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May 17, 2012 by Ted Boettner
The Middle Class Creates Jobs, Not Business

Brad Delong sends us to this great speech (and presentation) from venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, which was recently banned from TED. More on that here. His remarks remind me of the Robert Reich axiom: You can't have a strong economy without a strong middle class. While businesses and the 1% love tax cuts, it has…

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May 16, 2012 by WVCBP
WVCBP’s blog comment policy

Thank you for joining the conversation about policy issues that affect low and moderate-income West Virginians. Comments are to approval and moderation. We reserve the right to remove comments that: are injurious, defamatory, profane, off-topic or inappropriate; contain personal attacks or racist, sexist, homophobic, or other slurs; solicit and/or advertise for personal blogs and websites…

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May 16, 2012 by Sean O'Leary
What Could Tax Reform Look Like?

The clarion call for tax reform continues to sound in West Virginia, as the business community continues to rail against the state's business personal property tax, regardless of a lack of evidence. So what would tax reform look like in West Virginia? First, let's go ahead an eliminate the business personal property tax. We know that the business personal property…

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May 12, 2012 by Ted Boettner
1,500 Coal Mining Jobs Created Since Obama Took Office (Updated)

Over at Coal Tattoo, Ken Ward has a must read piece on why state politicians and the media avoid having a balanced discussion regarding the impact of the coal industry. One of the central reasons why our state is unable to have a rational discussion is the propaganda and inflammatory rhetoric coming from the coal…

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May 11, 2012 by Ted Boettner
1,500 Coal Mining Jobs Created Since Obama Took Office

Over at Coal Tattoo, Ken Ward has a must read piece on why state politicians and the media avoid having a balanced discussion regarding the impact of the coal industry. One of the central reasons why our state is unable to have a rational discussion is the propaganda and inflammatory rhetoric coming from the coal…

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May 10, 2012 by Sean O'Leary
Tax Reform Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Reality

The specter of job killing property taxes in West Virginia reared its head again this week, with the cry for tax reform coming this time from outgoing Bayer CEO Greg Babe, as he presented to Charleston Area Alliance's 2012 Annual Celebration, reported by the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail rehashed Mr. Babe's argument, debunked once before here, in an editorial this morning.…

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