West Virginia Watch – The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has garnered much media and lawmaker attention recently with a press release decrying the state’s jobs numbers. While they are right that the numbers are lackluster, West Virginia’s flagging economic landscape is not a recent phenomenon.
Read the full op-ed.
West Virginia had the ninth worst job growth of any state coming out of the pandemic with 1.1% growth between February 2020 and July 2025 (the nation has seen a 4.8% increase over that period). West Virginia’s disappointing economic and jobs numbers over the last several years should be seen as a final nail in the coffin for corporate-first policies that fail to prioritize workers, small businesses, and infrastructure investments statewide. West Virginia needs to invest in a 55-county strategy to spur opportunity from Weirton to War.
In recent years, much of the state’s economic development strategy has focused on offering business tax incentives to big corporations to locate in West Virginia alongside enacting deep tax cuts to make the state more “appealing” to businesses. These efforts have yet to move the needle on economic and jobs’ growth while coming with great opportunity costs.
