West Virginia has a unique opportunity to lead the way in providing paid leave benefits to all workers. A bipartisan group of Senators has introduced SCR 41, which would instruct the legislature to study the costs, benefits, and implementation of creating a paid family and medical leave program in West Virginia. Although there is bipartisan…
Income and Work
West Virginians who work should be able to support their families and afford their basic needs. Unfortunately, too many jobs in West Virginia pay too little for workers and their families to make ends meet. 23% of workers in West Virginia are employed in low-wage jobs and over a quarter of those live in poverty.…
A new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) looks at who would benefit from raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024. According to EPI, if the federal minimum wage ($7.25/hour) was raised by about $1.30/hour/year over the next six years - reaching $15 in 2024 - it would benefit approximately…
On January 16, WVCBP Executive Director Ted Boettner presented to the West Virginia Workforce Development Board on policy recommendations that could boost wages and prosperity in the Mountain State. View full presentation.
West Virginia has historically had one of the lowest labor force participation rates in the country. The labor force participation rate (LFPR) is the share of people 16 years or older either working or seeking work. A healthy LFPR is a key driver of a society’s economic output per capita and overall standard of living in…
West Virginia has one of the largest gender pay gaps in the nation and the highest of all surrounding states, according to Climbing the Mountain: Closing the Gender Pay Gap in West Virginia, a new West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy report. PDF of report. The report shows shows in 2017, women working full-time, year round in West…
A new report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research finds that 30 percent of working families (age 19-64) in West Virginia are economically insecure, which means they don't make enough money to meet basic monthly expenses (food, transportation, housing, utilities, etc.) and reach modest financial goals. The economic insecurity measures takes into account working adults that…
West Virginia's population is increasingly living in urban areas, with those urban areas experiencing all the state's job growth in the past quarter century, leaving rural West Virginia behind in many key areas, according to a new West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy report. State of Rural West Virginia shows rural West Virginians primarily have…
State and local tax systems can be effectively used to boost economic opportunity, create broadly shared prosperity and build equitable state economies. But in most states, including West Virginia, tax systems are upside down and are making inequality worse, as a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows. The ITEP report examines the state…
West Virginia made headlines in recent months with a strong quarter of personal income growth. While some media outlets and politicians took the data as further evidence of the so-called "West Virginia comeback," subsequent releases of personal income data show that the strong quarter was more likely an anomaly than a sign of a trend. West Virginia's total personal income…