If Congress fails to act before December 31, the enhanced premium tax credits (PTCs) that millions across the country depend on to afford their health insurance through the ACA Marketplace will expire, resulting in massive premium spikes and inaccessible care. For independent contractors, gig workers, self-employed West Virginians, and employees whose jobs do not offer…
Budget Beat
This week, reporter Steven Allen Adams of Ogden newspapers confirmed what many had been hearing in recent days: Gov. Patrick Morrisey inexplicably wants to call the Legislature into a special session mere weeks before the regular session to muscle through a deeply regressive tax and budget plan. The tradeoff, reportedly, is even deeper cuts to a state…
Each year the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy releases our annual State of Working West Virginia report, which examines the Mountain State’s economy through the lens of its workers—the people who power our state and economy. While each year’s report has a slightly different focus, one consistent theme is the need to ask this simple question:…
As the government shutdown drags on, the focus in Washington is on political gamesmanship. But here in West Virginia, the consequences are dangerously real. One in 6 West Virginians rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help put food on the table. That’s more than 270,000 of our friends and neighbors, including nearly 100,000…
Due to a combination of factors, including declining student enrollment, expired pandemic-era federal relief funding, the growing Hope Scholarship, and an outdated funding formula, public schools across West Virginia have less funding and resources to meet the needs of their students and communities. This has culminated in a new wave of school closures. Over the…
If you scroll through social media or watch the news, you’ll see our members of Congress and special interest groups practically begging West Virginians to believe that the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” (HR 1) is good for us. But West Virginians know a bad deal when we see one. This legislation takes away health care…
The children of West Virginia are guaranteed a thorough and efficient system of free schools by our state constitution. However, due to the growing Hope Scholarship, declining state revenues, and disruptions to federal funding and support, this guarantee is at risk for the nearly 90 percent of school-aged children in the Mountain State that are educated in…
In July, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued guidance to states to move ahead with implementing President Trump’s executive order by creating a national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) information database including the personal identifying information of SNAP participants and their families. This guidance directed states to share the names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and addresses of people…
Quantez Burks is one of hundreds of people who died in a West Virginia jail or prison since 2020. With the permission of Mr. Burks’s family, the WVCBP created this report in his name to do what the WV Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) and state leaders have not: acknowledge the people who died in their…
In a Charleston Gazette-Mail story from July 10 about the growing cost of the Hope Scholarship, state Treasurer Larry Pack admitted something that has never been said aloud before. “…[H]is office believes only about 10% of the more than 10,000 students who received the Hope Scholarship last year were enrolled in public school before transferring to private school…