West Virginia has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the country, and nearly 25 percent of personal income in West Virginia comes from government transfer payments. The national average is just under 15 percent. Transfer payments are mainly made up of payments by the government for various social benefit programs. These programs include Social…
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On July 3, 2010 it was estimated that 6,900 unemployed West Virginians exhausted their unemployment benefits because the U.S. Senate failed to reauthorize the expired jobless aid that was included in the 2009 Recovery Act. It gets worse. By the end of July the number of unemployed workers in West Virginia exhausting their benefits will…
On Friday, State Senator McCabe had a nicely written retort to my op-ed last week on OPEB . Senator McCabe is a friend and I value his opinion greatly and I think he takes a well reasoned and balanced approach. I just wish I was as optimistic as McCabe about addressing OPEB and our long-term…
According to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), halving the incarceration rates of nonviolent criminals would result in an estimated nationwide savings in corrections spending of $16.9 billion annually, with state and local governments receiving $14.8 billion, or nearly 88 percent of the savings. The national incarceration rate is…
During a recession, businesses respond to weak demand by laying off workers. Paul estimated that there are 103,000 jobless workers in West Virginia. In this recession job creation has been slow as we struggle to make it from recession to recovery. As a result, many of the jobless face long-term unemployment. Almost 46 percent of unemployed…
Sorry for not posting over the last two weeks, but I've been out of the country. I am just now catching up on the news. Howard Swint had a thought provoking op-ed in the Gazette this past Friday advocating for a 40% profits tax on coal to replace the coal severance tax. As many may…
Back in December, the Governor issued an executive order to cut $120 million from the FY10 budget . He did this, according to our report, based on an overly pessimistic review of the November 2009 tax revenue collections. When collections rose in December, the Governor said "we must stay the course." We said then…
With the national unemployment rate kissing 10% , it was disheartening to see Howard Swint join the job killing deficit hawks. In Saturday's Gazette-Mail, Swint argues that the solution to our economic woes is a federal "Balanced Budget Amendment" that "provides that annual expenditures do not exceed revenue for any fiscal year." Swint worries that…
As I mentioned in my last post , the Census projects that by 2030 one in four West Virginians will be over age 65. As a result, it could cost state and local governments a lot revenue. This is because seniors, in general, are not part of the labor force. This means they pay less in…
Would you consider it a "crisis" if an accountant told you how much money you owe on your house? Apparently, that's the rationale Phil Kabler used yesterday when he told people that our state's $8 billion OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits = the state's retiree health care subsidy for state and public school employees) liability is "the…