Beckley Register-Herald – In the U.S. today, 29 states have an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program designed to put cash back in the pockets of low-income families. With 23 percent of its workforce toiling in poverty wage jobs, West Virginia is not among those states. Read article.
That’s a situation that the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy intends to change.
“This is a mainstream idea,” the center’s policy outreach director, Seth DiStefano, told a group of around 20 people in a seminar this week on poverty in Greenbrier County.
He said a 15 percent EITC would generate annual economic activity of approximately $48 million a year, as most (if not all) of the refunded money would sluice back into the economy, as do most income tax refunds received by poor to moderate income families.
