West Virginia lags behind much of the country in many areas, but one particular measure may explain many of the others; West Virginia's workforce is poorly educated. West Virginia's workforce is plagued by low wages. One explanation for the state's low wages could be the low educational attainment of its workforce. Earnings increase with educational…
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How many people understand this point? My guess, not many. An article in the Charleston Gazette this morning may help: "The unfunded liabilities would be a problem if all state and local retirees went into retirement at once, but they won't. Nor will state governments go out of business and hand underfunded pension plans over to a federal…
There has been plenty of attention lately about unfair property tax assessments for homeowners, where even without a rate increase, a homeowner's property tax bill jumps due to an increase in the assess value of the home. However, there is another issue with property taxes that has been going unnoticed. Since 1994, when the first statewide reappraisal…
The issue of other post employment benefits for West Virginia's public employees has been discussed at length, here, here, and here. The growing cost of health care presents a real and substantial problem for our state budget. In 1973, PEIA medical expenses made up two percent of general revenue funds. This number increased to 10 percent in…
Earlier this week, I voiced concern that the proposed spending cuts coming from the U.S. House of Representatives would threaten West Virginia's ability to meet important needs like education, environmental protection, and community development, while threatening the fragile economic recovery. Now a report prepared for Goldman Sachs confirms that the proposed spending cuts would hurt the economy,…
The recent Republican proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives to cut current-year (2011) non-security discretionary funding by 13.8 percent would slash many highly effective programs that provide services to thousands in West Virginia. Over 1,300 at-risk children up to age 5 in West Virginia could lose education, health, nutrition and other services under Head Start, while 61,000 college students…
The New York Times and the Economist both had interesting pieces last week highlighting the difficulties of federal corporate tax reform. Most interesting, however, was a chart in each article showing the effective federal corporate income tax rate by industry. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the chart contained a major error. The effective rates in the chart…
AP ran an interesting piece this afternoon showing that West Virginia's economy is struggling despite good job growth. The article noted that the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 9.6% in December 2010 (although Work Force WV has the rate at 9.4), rising slightly above the national rate of 9.4% for the first time…
December General Revenue collections exceeded estimates by $38.2 million dollars. This was the 8th consecutive month where actual collections exceeded estimated collections. At the midpoint of FY 2011, West Virginia currently sits on a cash surplus of nearly $160 million dollars. The graph below shows monthly estimated and actual revenue collections since the beginning of…
Over last fifty years, the cost of health care has increased dramatically in the United States. In 1960, 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) went toward health expenditures. By 2008, health expenditures comprised 16.2 percent of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that total health care spending could reach 26 percent…