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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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…
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…
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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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…
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…
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…
Source: www.wvminesafety.org/historicprod.htmand http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/stb0702.xls
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.…