On the first day of the 2022 legislative session, the West Virginia Senate introduced bills that would make major changes to the state's unemployment insurance system, to the detriment of the state's workers. While Senate Bill 3 would add additional strict work search requirements for unemployed workers collecting unemployment insurance, Senate Bill 2 would reduce…
Income and Work
Mountain State Spotlight, Beckley Register-Herald, My Buckhannon - When the pandemic hit West Virginia in the spring of 2020, the symptoms were immediate, even before cases and deaths were close to their peak: Shutdowns and public health concerns forced thousands of state residents out of their jobs. Read the full article. Continued unemployment claims skyrocketed from…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - State officials Monday discussed state and federal workforce shortage issues and the role the "benefits cliff effect" plays in exacerbating those shortages. Read the full article.
Charleston Gazette-Mail, Huntington Herald-Dispatch - Bolstered by another month of strong severance tax collection, the ongoing influx of billions of dollars of federal pandemic stimulus funds and plain old good timing, West Virginia tax collection for November came in at $435.6 million, or $88.03 million higher than projected, figures released by the Senate Finance Committee…
Business Insider - On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia didn't commit to approving the one-year child tax credit expansion as it's laid out in the $2 trillion House-approved social spending package. It raises the prospect of further changes to the proposed cash benefit. "Everybody's still talking," Manchin told Insider. "Everybody's still talking and…
West Virginia MetroNews - A group of West Virginians gathered outside of Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) Charleston office Monday, urging him to defend the child tax credit and pass the Build Back Better Act. Read the full article. The handful of leaders did so in a unique way, in the giving of a quilt that featured stories…
The Exponent Telegram - The Bruce Carter United Orthopaedic and Spine Center is holding the annual “Coats for Kids” drive to provide children in need with a coat this holiday season. Read the full article. Information from Child Trends provides that 17.5% of American children live in poverty. West Virginia has the seventh highest child poverty rate…
Charleston Gazette-Mail, Huntington Herald-Dispatch, Williamson Daily News - West Virginia's senior senator has suggested restricting a program currently sending families $250-$300 per month, per child -- a move that could hamper education outcomes and reduce the number of children in the state receiving the benefit by more than half. Read the full article. According to…
It's Halloween week -- time to get spooky! Who needs ghost stories when you have spine-tingling bars and trend lines? Here are five ghoulish charts about West Virginia in 2021 that will make your bones rattle and your blood curdle. At the beginning of the pandemic, West Virginia lost an unprecedented 101,000 jobs as total…
This blog post, co-authored by the Keystone Research Center's executive director Stephen Herzenberg and the WVCBP’s senior policy analyst Sean O'Leary, was originally published by the ReImagine Appalachia coalition. West Virginia is at the center of the national political storm surrounding the need to invest in infrastructure, in families, and in combating climate change. Notably, West Virginia…