The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tremendous challenges for West Virginia workers, from unsafe working conditions to unprecedented job losses. While some areas of West Virginia’s economy are recovering, the job market is far from pre-pandemic levels and employment gains have not been equally distributed. Further, increasing COVID-19 cases remain a threat to workers' health and…
Income and Work
WTRF - COVID-19 has taken a toll on many families. But, families who were just barely getting by are getting a boost, with the help of the expanded Child Tax Credit Program. Read the full article. Like other families, Jenny Showalter, who lives in Wheeling, knows the impact of the expanded Child Tax Credit program.…
For Immediate Release: September 14, 2021Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV – In March of 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act made significant but temporary changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). In addition to increasing the value of the CTC and including more families in this critical support, ARPA included the flexibility for eligible families to…
Business Insider - Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia dug in on pushing a new requirement that parents work in order to receive the child tax credit on Tuesday as Democrats struggled to get the $3.5 trillion social spending plan over the finish line. Read the full article. "They know I feel very strongly about…
Business Insider - West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin on Sunday floated the possibility of establishing a work requirement for people to receive the child tax credit, a program that was expanded earlier this year by President Joe Biden and Democrats in the stimulus law. Read the full article. "I support child tax credits. I sure…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - Right now, Congress is considering a budget package that serves as an important companion to the negotiated bipartisan infrastructure package. Read the full op-ed. Alongside much-needed investments in roads and bridges, it would address longstanding needs of workers and families in our state and around the country — things like paid family…
This blog post, authored by the WVCBP's summer research associate Myya Helm, was originally published by the ReImagine Appalachia coalition. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. In August 1921, union coal miners clashed with an anti-union citizen army near Blair Mountain, West Virginia, in what became the largest battle in the…
West Virginia MetroNews - A little more than half of West Virginia residents believe the state’s economy is on the wrong track. Read the full article. That’s according to the latest MetroNews West Virginia Poll, which surveyed 400 registered voters August 20-25. Fifty-four percent of respondents said the state’s economy is headed the wrong way.…
WOWK, Opera News - On Inside West Virginia Politics, Myya Helm is a research associate for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy who helped write their annual report called “Labor, Race, and Solidarity.” Her study showed the division between Black, White and European miners — the immigrants who came in to fill the…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - Sitting in a Charleston hotel room Thursday afternoon just before a planning meeting for the United Mine Workers of America’s re-creation of the march on Blair Mountain to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the largest labor uprising in U.S. history, UMWA spokesman Phil Smith was looking not back but ahead. Read the…