Contact Ted Boettner at tboettner@wvpolicy.org or Sean O'Leary at soleary@wvpolicy.org or 304-720-8682 For the second year in a row, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's proposed budget includes cuts to important programs like higher education and early childhood programs. To close other budget gaps, the governor draws from one-time revenue sources, including the state's Rainy Day Fund…
News Releases
Contact: Ted Boettner, 304-720-8682, tboettner@wvpolicy.org While the West Virginia legislature considers whether or not to increase the state's minimum wage, a new report shows that the state's top 1% of income earners captured over half of all the state's income growth between 1979 and 2007. According to "The Increasingly Unequal States of America: Income Inequality…
Contact: Alyson Clements at aclements@wvpolicy.org or 713-304-2622 Raise the Wage West Virginia Reacts to House Vote Raise the Wage West Virginia, a newly formed coalition, is applauding yesterday's 89-5 vote in the West Virginia House of Delegates to raise the state's minimum wage. The group includes members of the faith-based community, labor unions, community organizations…
Contact Ted Boettner at 304-720-8682 or tboettner@wvpolicy.org West Virginia is among the worst states in the country in long-term budget planning, according to a major new report from the Washington, DC-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. West Virginia should adopt a set of proven budget-planning tools that could help it weather difficult economic times,…
Contact: Stephen Smith, 304-610-6512, ssmith@wvhealthykids.org or Ted Boettner, 304-590-3454, tboettner@wvpolicy.org On February 4, more than 600 parents, kids and other community and faith advocates from across the state gathered at the state Capitol for Kids and Families Day to advocate for their 2014 Legislative Platform. "Our Children, Our Future" is a collaboration of over 155 West…
New Report Finds Biggest Landowners Headquartered Outside State Contact Ted Boettner at 304-720-8682 or tboettner@wvpolicy.org A study released today found that the top land owner in West Virginia is the Heartwood Forestland Fund, which manages more than 500,000 acres across 31 counties. Heartwood replaces energy-based corporations that were the state's top landowners for most of…
Contact: Ted Boettner, 304-720-8682, tboettner@wvpolicy.org Charleston, WV — Drilling in the six states that span the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations has produced far fewer new jobs than the industry and its supporters claim, according to a new report released today by the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, a group of research organizations tracking the impacts…
Contact: Sean O'Leary - 304-720-8682, soleary@wvpolicy.org In order to decide whether or not to vote for a piece of legislation, West Virginia's legislators often rely on fiscal notes. Calculated by various state agencies, fiscal notes are intended to give legislators information on the financial impact of a particular bill, how much a new law will…
Contact: Sean O'Leary, 304-720-8682 or soleary@wvpolicy.org. Working full-time for today's minimum wage is not enough to stay out of poverty. In West Virginia, and at the federal level, the minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. Nineteen states have raised the minimum wage on their own and, in 2013, the West Virginia legislature passed…
Contact: Sean O'Leary, 304-720-8682, soleary@wvpolicy.org, Stephen Smith, 304-610-6512, ssmith@wvhealthykids.org More than 320,000 West Virginians lived in poverty in 2012, including nearly 90,000 children, according to today's release of the 2012 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau. The income and poverty data released show the continued struggle for thousands of families in West Virginia. Read…