For Immediate Release: January 06, 2021Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV - Between 2000 and 2019, West Virginia’s jail population increased by a staggering 81 percent, from approximately 2,853 inmates to 5,172, even as the state’s population shrunk in the same period. This follows the longer trend of mass incarceration in West Virginia and the United States…
News Releases
For Immediate Release: December 15, 2020Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV - With West Virginia still feeling the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic recession, the state’s leaders face difficult choices in the upcoming legislative session. The choices legislators make will help determine whether or not the state will have a swift and equitable recovery with an economy…
For Immediate Release: December 10, 2020Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV - Over the past 40 years, the mass incarceration of women in West Virginia has exploded, growing by a staggering 2,731 percent from 1978 to 2019. The incarceration rate of women far exceeds the incarceration rate of men in the Mountain State, and in 2019, West…
For Immediate Release: November 11, 2020Contact: Kelly Allen, 304-612-4180 In the wake of the announcement of final results in the 2020 presidential race, the directors of the ReImagine Appalachia campaign made the following statement on behalf of the coalition. Charleston, WV - Like most of us, the people living in the Ohio Valley want future generations to have…
For Immediate Release: November 09, 2020Contact: Sean O'Leary, 304-400-8899 Charleston, WV - In the 1960s, Black Americans across the country marched, protested, and even rioted as decades of institutional racism and oppression came to a head. Now in 2020, over half a century later, extraordinarily high numbers of Americans of all backgrounds marched once again in protest…
White papers detail Appalachian climate investment strategy for lawmakers post-election. For Immediate Release: October 29, 2020 Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV - The ReImagine Appalachia Coalition released a trio of white papers detailing needed infrastructure investments in broadband, for modernizing the region's manufacturing sector, reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and promoting regenerative agriculture. Read the reports here. The…
For Immediate Release: October 21, 2020 Contact: Kelly Allen, 304-612-4180 Charleston, WV - West Virginia saw the largest drop in the uninsured rate in the country following implementation of the Affordable Care Act, primarily due to success of the Medicaid expansion. While progress in reducing the uninsured rate has stalled since 2016, the pandemic has reinforced the importance…
For Immediate Release: October 5, 2020 Contact: Renee Alves, 559-916-5939 Charleston, WV- The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy's Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Kelly Allen will serve as the organization's new executive director. Allen will lead the nonprofit thinktank's team of seven talented staff members into their thirteenth year as the…
For Immediate Release: September 21, 2020 Contact: Kelly Allen, 304-612-4180 Charleston, WV- For several months, members of the Health Care for All WV coalition have urged our U.S. Senators and House Representatives to prioritize a robust COVID relief package that would address the immense suffering West Virginia families, businesses, and local governments are facing. Congress has failed…
For Immediate Release: September 17, 2020 Contact: Sean O'Leary, 304-400-8899 Charleston, WV - New data released today from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and an analysis of data from its ongoing Household Pulse Survey and other sources paints a bleak picture. People across West Virginia -- particularly West Virginians of color and those with low incomes -- continue to face…