Income and Work

January 21, 2020 by WVCBP
Unemployment Insurance in West Virginia: A Good System With Room For Improvement (NELP Report)

This report was written by Michele Evermore, Senior Policy Analyst with the National Employment Law Center (NELP) While the US economy is flashing signs of a potential economic downturn in the future, West Virginia’s unemployment insurance system is in a precarious situation that needs immediate attention. Unemployment Insurance (UI) is more than just a lifeline…

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January 13, 2020 by Sean O'Leary
The State of West Virginia’s Immigrants

West Virginia’s immigrants come from all over the world and while a small share of the populations, they are broadly represented throughout the state’s workforce and economy. Read PDF of report. But a fuller conversation about immigrants tends to be overshadowed by the controversy in the U.S. around immigration reform. This conversation all too often…

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November 19, 2019 by Ted Boettner
West Virginia’s Jobs Picture (October 2019)

The Labor Department released state unemployment and job figures for October today that show there has been no statistically significant increase in jobs over the last year in West Virginia. According to preliminary figures, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in October was 4.8% and payroll employment stood at 733,100, an increase of 3,200 from October…

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November 15, 2019 by Seth DiStefano
Seth DiStefano: For Low-Wage Workers, What Comes Next?

Charleston Gazette-Mail - Recently, residents of the Kanawha Valley have heard a great deal from elected officials about the success of the sports complex at Shawnee Park and the remodeling of the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center. The conversations about these two projects always find their way back to the same term: economic development. Read op-ed.…

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October 16, 2019 by WVCBP
Lewis County Girls are Lucky to Have Many Positive Role Models

The Weston Democrat - When we first started talking about the unusually high number of women in leadership roles compared to other counties, one topic was how to narrow the list down to a manageable amount to cover. We focused on women in Lewis County who are elected officials or work for a government entity, in…

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August 30, 2019 by Ted Boettner
Five Charts for Labor Day 2019

The decline in union coverage in West Virginia and across the United States is one of the central reasons for wage stagnation and the loss of hard-fought union benefits like pensions. West Virginia can help reverse this trend by eliminating "Right to Work" and by letting public employees collectively bargain.   Even as workers are…

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August 28, 2019 by WVCBP
Wage Theft in West Virginia: Solutions for a Hidden Epidemic

Wage theft is one of the most prevalent but under-reported problems confronting working people in the United States. Wage theft is a violation of workers’ rights in which an employer fails to pay an employee what that employee is owed. The national scale of wage theft is tremendous. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI),…

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August 25, 2019 by Kelly Allen
Kelly Allen: Equality for Women? Close Income Gap

This week marks the 99th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th Amendment, granting women (though not black or native women, in many cases) the right to vote. Read this op-ed in the Beckley Register-Herald. This date has become known as Women’s Equality Day, but nearly a century later, women – and particularly women of…

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August 9, 2019 by Kelly Allen
West Virginia’s Municipalities Have the Authority to Expand Worker Benefits

Everyone gets sick, but not everyone gets paid time off work to get better. Nearly half of West Virginia’s private sector workers, 46 percent, lacks paid sick leave, and people of color and low-income workers are the least likely to have access to this benefit. This means that those who have the most to lose by…

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