This report was written for WVCBP by Rayna E. Momen, MA. Introduction Over the past 40 years, the mass incarceration of women has exploded in West Virginia (WV), growing by a staggering 2,731 percent from 1978 to 2019. Female incarceration has grown so quickly, in fact, that women are being incarcerated at a higher rate…
Reports & Briefs
Foreword In 1967, Black Americans marched, protested, and even rioted as decades of systemic racism and oppression came to a head. In response, President Lyndon Johnson established the Kerner Commission, which spent the next year researching, holding hearings, and visiting communities to examine racial inequity in the country. In 1968, the Commission issued its report,…
Introduction Despite major gains under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), too many low- and middle- income West Virginians still lack consistent affordable health care coverage options. West Virginia saw the largest drop in the uninsured rate in the country after implementation of the ACA and Medicaid expansion, going from 13.5 percent of the population uninsured…
Introduction The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. CHIP is administered at the state level and is usually tied closely to state Medicaid programs. Each state program has its own rules about who qualifies for CHIP. Read the full policy…
The cost of prescription drugs is one of the leading health care issues in the United States, accounting for $335 billion of total health care spending in 2018 [1] and over 23 percent of total health insurance premium costs.[2] And the cost of prescription drugs is rising. The cost of prescription drugs is one of…
Governor Jim Justice’s FY 2021 budget is largely unchanged from FY 2020, with stagnating revenues preventing any major new spending and one-time budget maneuvers preventing any spending cuts. While the FY 2021 budget is stable because of a large surplus in Medicaid, the state faces significant budget gaps in the coming years that may require…
This report was written by Michele Evermore, Senior Policy Analyst with the National Employment Law Center (NELP) While the US economy is flashing signs of a potential economic downturn in the future, West Virginia’s unemployment insurance system is in a precarious situation that needs immediate attention. Unemployment Insurance (UI) is more than just a lifeline…
To get a sense of a state’s values, one often need look no further than its tax system. What a state spends its tax dollars on and how it acquires those tax dollars typically reveals a lot about the priorities of its people—what they care about and what they stand for. In theory, it’s a…
West Virginia’s immigrants come from all over the world and while a small share of the populations, they are broadly represented throughout the state’s workforce and economy. Read PDF of report. But a fuller conversation about immigrants tends to be overshadowed by the controversy in the U.S. around immigration reform. This conversation all too often…
Poor oral health is widespread in West Virginia. It significantly affects the employability of our workforce, contributes to higher emergency room utilization, and is often both an indicator of and a contributor to other chronic health conditions. According to a 2014 report, only 40 percent of West Virginians have dental insurance.[1] While Medicaid expansion has…