According to a study by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, the COVID-19 mortality rate nationwide is twice as high in prisons compared to the general population. Social distancing is difficult if not impossible in correctional facilities due to their congregate nature. This, combined with the reality that incarcerated people are more likely…
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Charleston Daily Mail - A recent column by Hoppy Kercheval wrongly states that the revolution in shale development was the product of the โfree market.โ Nothing could be further from the truth. ReadFederal investments and involvement in the development of shale extraction technologies span three decades.In fact, the first successful multi-fracture horizontal drilling play was…
Every day in West Virginia, thousands of low-income families rely on public child care assistance. Inย 2011, the West Virginia Child Care Program โ which is funded primarily through the federal Childย Care and Development Fund (CCDF), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and stateย matching funds โ provided financial assistance to more than 24,000 children whose parents…
West Virginia Next State to Drug Test Welfare Recipients? A bill making its way through the West Virginia Senate would create a three-county pilot program to drug test recipients of cash assistance. At its current projected costs, the drug testing program would cost over $600 per cash assistance recipient. To put that amount into perspective,…
Come work with us! We're hiring two full-time, paid summer fellows. The WVCBP seeks a Criminal Legal Policy Fellow to research and write about best practices for improving the criminal system, with a focus on the areas of excessive sentences and reducing the harms caused by jails and prisons. The WVCBP also seeks an Economic…
Last week, Governor Justice unveiled his proposal to make sweeping changes to the stateโs tax system, including a substantial cut to the stateโs personal income tax, while raising a variety of sales and other taxes. The tax reform would create a dramatic change in who pays state taxes in West Virginia, shifting the responsibility onto working families to…
While the last post found that state income taxes have little or no impact on interstate migration, there is also little evidence that slashing or eliminating the personal income tax is a surefire way to boost economic growth in the Mountain State. Most of the states that have followed this path recently have not experienced…
Bill to Drug Test TANF Recipients Passes First Committee The 2015 Legislative Session is now more than halfway over and there are several measures we are keeping an eye on that would impact West Virginia's working families. Yesterday the House held a public hearing on legislation that would require drug testing of Temporary Assistant to…
With the legislature adjourned sine die (or without assigning a day for further meeting for those needing all state business to be conducted in English,) now's a good time to look back at some of the bills made into law this past session. Here's a quick recap of some of the major bills passed by…
The House and the Senate have advanced two similar tax bills that make substantial changes to the state's personal income and sales tax, which account for over 75 percent of state general revenue fund collections. Both of these bills will shift the tax load from the wealthy onto working families. It is unclear how either…