The Economic Policy Institute has updated its Family Budget Calculator for 2013. The Family Budget Calculator measures the income level necessary for families to secure an adequate but modest living standard by estimating community-specific costs of housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, other necessities, and taxes. The calculator gives a broader measure of economic welfare than…
Economic Security
In discussions about poverty in West Virginia and Appalachia, it doesn't take long before someone blames "welfare dependency" for the plight of West Virginia's poor and its lack of economic welfare. The idea of West Virginia having a "culture of poverty" is nothing new. In fact, its roots date back to the 1960s. As Mil…
On Wednesday, February 27, Executive Director Ted Boettner presented to the Senate Select Committee on Children and Poverty. Established at the start of the 2013 Legislative Session, this was the Committee's second meeting. Read presentation.
On February 19, 2013, Executive Director Ted Boettner was a speaker at the Worth Our Care symposium in Charleston, WV. His presentation focused on child poverty in West Virginia, who is impacted by it and ways to address it. Read
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) report, this new report revisits many of the same measures of well-being that ARC researchers examined a half-century ago. This analysis, however, focuses its attention on West Virginia, the one state that exists entirely within the federally designated Appalachian region, and, more…
Today, nearly one in three young children (under age 6) in West Virginia lives in poverty. For a family of four that means living on a income of about $20,000 a year in 2012. Child poverty is a persistent and growing problem in West Virginia. That's why it's so important that State Senate Majority Leader…
Yesterday, the Daily Mail published an editorial claiming that "family disintegration", or the lack of marriage among low-income West Virginians, is the central reason why the state ranks low in several social and economic welfare indicators, such as poverty, truancy, and crime to name a few. To make its case, The Daily Mail relied on…
As state lawmakers and others review and debate the findings of the recent education audit, it is important that they consider the economic and social conditions of our state's children. This is especially true when evaluating our state's K-12 education outcomes, which likely has more to do with the income of a student's parent than…
On November 9, 2012, Executive Director Ted Boettner presented to the Governor's Committee on Child Care Assistance to discuss a new report that looked at the impact of recent and future changes to the West Virginia Child Care Program.
Every day in West Virginia, thousands of low-income families rely on public child care assistance. In 2011, the West Virginia Child Care Program – which is funded primarily through the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and state matching funds – provided financial assistance to more than 24,000 children whose parents…