Overview During the 2024 legislative session, the West Virginia Senate introduced bills that would make major changes to the state’s unemployment insurance system, to the detriment of workers. These changes include dramatically reducing the number of weeks of unemployment benefits available to the state’s unemployed workers. SB 840, would tie the maximum weeks of eligibility…
Fact Sheets
Unemployment insurance is an earned benefit that provides income support to workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Unemployment insurance helps families avoid economic shocks as the person who lost their job transitions to new work, and it helps sustain consumer demand during economic downturns. Read the full fact sheet…
Overview Read the full fact sheet here. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) is the most powerful anti-hunger tool in the United States. It is highly responsive to economic downturns, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, where unemployment peaked at over 15 percent in West Virginia.[1] SNAP already…
While, as a state, West Virginia has fully recovered all jobs lost during the pandemic, that job recovery has not been felt evenly across all counties. Recent economic development announcements have been limited to a handful of counties, mostly on the state's border. As of November 2023, 18 counties are still below their pre-pandemic jobs…
Despite officials denying overcrowding in West Virginia's regional jail system, our research reveals that nearly one-third of people in our state's jails are assigned to sleep on the floor. Download the full fact sheet here.
In March 2022, Governor Jim Justice announced that he had directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate Southern Regional Jail (SRJ). In the days leading up to the governor’s announcement, media reports described horrifying conditions at the Raleigh County jail: filthy and broken accommodations, people sleeping on wet floors, violence against incarcerated people…
Over the last year and a half, the public has learned what people behind bars have known for years: that the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitations (DCR) consistently fails to keep people in its custody safe. Since the beginning of 2020, 217 people have died in a West Virginia jail or prison. This…
West Virginia places four times as many children per capita into the foster care system as the United States as a whole. Most foster care entries in West Virginia are related to substance use or neglect—not abuse. Poverty and lack of access to substance use treatment are major drivers of foster care entry.[i] To solve…
West Virginia lawmakers passed the Hope Scholarship, at the time one of the broadest school voucher programs in the nation, in 2021. Voucher programs like the Hope Scholarship, referred to as Education Savings Accounts, divert taxpayer funding from the public education system to unaccountable, sometimes unaccredited, private schools and education service providers. With no public…
For citations, visit bit.ly/disinvestmentcost.