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…
Income and Work
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…
West Virginia MetroNews - Gov. Jim Justice announced today that the administration paid off the final $185 million on an interest-free federal loan that had been used as cushion for the state’s unemployment trust fund. Read the full article. The administration had set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in CARES Act funding in anticipation of paying…
Jackson Newspapers - A "help wanted" sign has lived in the Downtowner's front window for a year. Before the COVID pandemic began, the restaurant had seven employees. Now it has four. Two, not including the owners. Read the full article. Dave and Melissa took over the restaurant nine years ago. The American homestyle restaurant survived the…
WV News - Advocates and community members gathered at Krepps Park Pavilion in Morgantown on Monday to discuss the need for a federal policy to ensure that all workers have access to paid family and medical leave for the care of a new child, one’s own illness, or caregiving responsibilities for a seriously ill family…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - In his 27 years as an underground coal miner in West Virginia, Gary Hairston noticed that it took some backup to breathe easier. Read the full article. “There was a lot better protection in a union mine,” Hairston recalled. “The union backs you.” Hairston found that a union representative would investigate miners’…
Dominion Post, Yahoo News - A group of people braved Monday's rain and mugginess to gather at the Kreps Park Pavilion for a "Picnic for Paid Leave." Read the full article. It was the final picnic of several held around the state to rally support for paid family leave legislation Congress will be considering in…