Each year the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy releases our annual State of Working West Virginia report, which examines the Mountain State’s economy through the lens of its workers—the people who power our state and economy. While each year’s report has a slightly different focus, one consistent theme is the need to ask this simple question: How are the people who do the work faring?
This year’s edition, the 17th installment in our State of Working West Virginia series, focuses on the state of women in and around West Virginia’s workforce.
Over the past few decades, declining unemployment and rising labor force participation have improved the outlook for women in West Virginia’s workforce. But many disparities exist today—lower wages, higher poverty rates, and caregiving responsibilities still burden women disproportionately. While many of these issues are common throughout the United States, they are particularly taxing in West Virginia. In their 2023 report, Oxfam ranked West Virginia as the seventh-worst state for working women.
“Unemployment is near historic lows in West Virginia and nationally, but some groups don’t fare as well as others due to longstanding structural barriers and inequities in access to opportunity,” says report author and WVCBP senior policy analyst, Sean O’Leary. “Despite changes over the decades, a gap between men and women persists regarding labor force participation, wages, poverty, and overall economic security.”
West Virginia has some of the lowest wages in the country. The state’s median hourly wage of $21.65 ranks 45th among the 50 states and D.C. and is $2.33 below the national average; meanwhile, the median hourly wage for women specifically in West Virginia is $19.93, also ranking 45th in the country. At the median hourly wage, West Virginia women earn $0.86 for every $1.00 West Virginia men earn. Notably, men earn more than women at every wage level.
This disparity in wages can partially be explained by the industries in which women often work. The industry that employs the most women, elementary and secondary schools, paid an average weekly wage of $584 in 2023, while the industry with the greatest concentration of women, child day care services, paid an average weekly wage of $462 in 2023. In comparison, the average weekly wage for all industries was $1,069 in 2023.
The lower wages earned by women translate into lower incomes and less economic security over a lifetime. Women’s lower earnings do not just affect them individually—they also impact their families.
West Virginia has historically had one of the highest poverty rates in the country and many workers find themselves in poverty despite maintaining a job. Just under 26,000 women who are employed are also living in poverty, creating a poverty rate for employed women of 7.5 percent. In comparison, the poverty rate for employed men is 5.2 percent.
Just under half of West Virginian women are not participating in the labor force, meaning they are neither working nor seeking work. But it is essential to note that just because women aren’t participating in the formal labor force does not mean they are not laboring or contributing to society and the economy. Of the West Virginian women not in the formal labor force, and who are not retired, over half report caring for home and family, while just under 40 percent are in school.
The financial implications of not being paid for caregiving work are significant. The average child care worker in West Virginia earned the already far-too-low wage of $462 per week in 2023. Over the course of a year, that is equivalent to $24,024. For the 66,500 women in West Virginia who do not participate in the formal labor force due to caring for home or family, this unpaid care work is worth just under $1.6 billion annually.
In West Virginia, half of non-full-time working parents say they would go back to work if their child had access to quality child care at a reasonable cost. West Virginia’s child care supply is severely limited, meaning even families who can afford child care face accessibility challenges. Limited public investment is a driver of too few child care subsidies, child care deserts, and poor wages for child care workers in the state.
Our report concludes with some policy recommendations that could address the inequities women experience and improve the lives of families and workers in the state more broadly:
Women face numerous challenges in West Virginia’s workplaces. Making work safer, better compensated, more flexible, and more just is important to improving the lives of these workers. With women making up half of the state’s population yet carrying a disproportionate burden of caring, domestic, and low-wage work, an equitable workplace for women means a better and stronger economy for all West Virginians.
Read the full report.
As we enter the final quarter of 2024, a number of economic indicators show West Virginia’s economy both slowing down and lagging behind the rest of the country. Growth in gross domestic product (GDP), personal income, wages and salaries, and employment have all shown signs of slowing, while business tax revenue collections are below that of the last two fiscal years.
West Virginia experienced GDP growth of 3.1 percent on an annualized rate in the first quarter of 2024, but that growth dropped to 2.1 percent in the second quarter of the year, below the national average of 3.0 percent. West Virginia’s GDP growth in the second quarter of 2024 ranked 41st among the 50 states and D.C.
Personal income indicated signs of an even bigger slowdown. Personal income in West Virginia grew at an annualized rate of 9.0 percent in the first quarter of 2024, before falling to just 3.9 percent in the second quarter of the year. West Virginia’s growth rate was below the national average of 5.3 percent and ranked 49th among the 50 states and D.C.
Wages and salaries, a major component of personal income, performed better than other economic indicators, but the state still experienced a slowdown so far in 2024. After growing at an annualized rate of 9.2 percent in the first quarter of 2024, growth fell to 5.8 percent in the second quarter of the year, below the national average of 6.2 percent. West Virginia’s second quarter growth ranked 34th among the 50 states and D.C.
While GDP, personal income, and wages and salaries grew at relatively slow rates, West Virginia was losing jobs. Total nonfarm employment fell by 1,600, or -0.2 percent from January 2024 to August 2024. West Virginia was one of only four states to lose jobs so far in 2024, and was well below the national growth rate of .9 percent.
Compared to pre-pandemic job levels, West Virginia’s total nonfarm employment has increased by 1.7 percent, compared to the national increase of 6.5 percent. Among the 50 states and D.C. West Virginia ranks 38th in job growth compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Diving deeper into West Virginia’s employment growth numbers reveals that not all industries are losing jobs. The health care industry appears to be boosting West Virginia’s economy, adding 3,100 jobs, while manufacturing and public sector jobs had the most losses, losing 1,500 jobs each.
Finally, business tax collections have fallen sharply in FY 2025 compared to this point in the fiscal year the past two years. While personal income tax collections have fallen in the past year due to ill-advised tax cuts, corporate net income tax rates have not been cut. Instead, their collections provide a real-time glimpse of the state of the economy, and they too reflect an economy that is slowing down. After collecting $125.9 million in the first quarter of FY 2024, West Virginia corporate net income tax collections in the first quarter of FY 2025 were only $80.1 million, a drop of $45.8 million, or 36.4 percent.
One possible explanation for declining corporate net income tax revenue in FY 2025 compared to FY 2024 is businesses switching their filing status to an S corporation, which would allow their income to “pass through” and be assessed at the shareholder’s individual income tax rates, taking advantage of the personal income tax cuts. However, it is unclear how many, if any, businesses are doing so, and collections are five percent below the estimate for the first quarter of FY 2025. What’s more, corporate net income tax collections for the first quarter of FY 2025 were even below the first quarter collections of FY 2023 by $22.8 million, suggesting little growth in business activity, even with the potential diversion from corporate income tax collections to personal income tax collections.
As we enter the final quarter of calendar year 2024, the slowdown of economic indicators across the board should raise alarm bells for policymakers. With several pressing budgetary needs, and the full impact of personal income tax cuts still yet to effect revenue collections, West Virginia needs strong economic growth in order for other revenues to offset the already steep decline in personal income tax collections. And while personal income tax cuts were promised to provide that growth, that promise has yet to pan out after nearly two years.
Read Sean’s full blog post.
West Virginia is experiencing an ongoing child care crisis, with care being unaffordable or otherwise inaccessible to families who need it in order for both parents to have the ability to work. Providers, families, and advocates have long demanded that this crisis be addressed. While Governor Justice recently claimed that he intended to do so, the special session he called at the end of the month failed to improve conditions for child care providers or those seeking child care, instead focusing on the passage of yet another fiscally reckless personal income tax cut. A recent article, including insight from WVCBP executive director Kelly Allen, provides further details. Excerpt below:
In mid-September, Gov. Jim Justice told the people of West Virginia he’d be calling the Legislature back into session at the end of the month.
“I promised you I’d fight like crazy for a 5% tax cut, I promised you I would try to help out with child care,” he said.
When the gavels slammed concluding the special session on Tuesday, most West Virginian families would get an average of 40 cents a week from the tax cut.
Little was done on getting that help for child care. And the money for the tax break came, in part, from the agency that oversees child care.
How much is the tax cut?
Going into the session, Justice asked the Legislature to pass a 5% income tax cut, on top of a 4% cut that’s effective Jan. 1, 2025 and a 21.25% cut last year.
But high ranking members of the Senate, notably Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, bristled at the suggestion, fearing it could put the budget at risk down the road. On Monday, the governor changed his proposal to a 2% cut.
Revenue Secretary Larry Pack, who oversees the state’s budget preparation, told the House Finance Committee he didn’t have an idea how much the tax cut would actually put in the pockets of West Virginians.
Kelly Allen, director of the West Virginia Center of Budget and Policy said budget modeling shows the average West Virginian will save $21 a year in taxes – the equivalent of a pop, a king size candy bar and less than $15 on pump 8.
While the amount was a point of contention – House Republicans said they were happy with the Governor’s initial 5% – the way they will pay for it caused an uproar from the minority caucus.
The total cost is $46 million, of which $19 million comes from retiring a Wise Administration-era bond.
Most of the money, $27 million, according to Pack, would come from the cost savings resulting from the breakup of the Department of Health and Human Services into three agencies. The new Department of Human Services oversees a dysfunctional foster care system and a child care subsidy program that could run out of cash by the end of the year.
Lawmakers pressed Pack on just where in the former department’s $1 billion budget the cuts came from. Pack said he didn’t have it in that detail.
What did they do for child care?
Twice already this year, lawmakers have come to Charleston and adjourned without doing anything to address West Virginia’s child care shortage.
By August, 60 child care centers across the state had closed. A key federal subsidy program is used by thousands of low-income families to afford child care in West Virginia. This program faces a $23-30 million funding shortfall but state officials have found enough federal money to fund it through the end of the year.
Instead of addressing this budget hole, the governor called for a non-refundable $1,500 maximum tax credit for child care. It would allow families to get up to $1,500 taken off their tax bill that had been spent on child care. But if they owe nothing in taxes, they don’t get any money.
But Allen said that wouldn’t do much good by only benefiting parents who already have children in child care.
An estimated 20,000 children in West Virginia need child care but can’t get it because there are not enough open slots. An analysis from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy said it would take around $100 million to solve the issue.
The governor also proposed $5 million for a “child care expansion pilot program” which would hire a consultant to study the problem and help develop small child care centers.
This idea faced choppy waters on the House floor Tuesday evening as lawmakers took issue with spending money on an outside study of a well-known problem.
“If we have $5 million, we have a list of things the child providers said will actually help,” said Del. Joey Garcia, D-Marion.
Garcia called for the bill to be postponed indefinitely. By a vote of 47-40, it was.
Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, sponsored several bills to address childcare, including $4.3 million for the federal subsidy program, $1,000 refundable tax credits for child care and to subsidize day care workers for their own child care. All those bills were sent to committees and never taken up.
Plugging the holes in the state budget with one time money
The roughly $500 million went to a variety of projects. Of that, $125 million went towards water and sewer projects. Another $100 million went towards those projects too, but they were placed in the Governor’s Civil Contingent Fund.
That fund is the governor’s discretionary fund. While some items in that budget are already spoken for, finance committee testimony revealed there’s $81 million that isn’t – enough to cover most of the Center of Budget and Policy recommendations for addressing child care.
The $500 million came out of the state’s surplus, the extra money left over from the prior budget year. Over the last few years, the state has enjoyed an unprecedented surplus. Last year, state revenues came in $1.8 billion over.
But these surpluses were largely driven by a flood of federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic and lowballed estimates from the governor, Allen said.
On top of that, in 2022 the severance tax collections went through the roof after natural gas prices rapidly rose when the Russians rolled tanks into Ukraine. That severance tax is historically volatile and as quick as the prices rose in 2022, they busted the next year.
But according to the governor’s numbers he sent to the state Senate, the flush times are coming to an end. In next year’s budget, state officials project to have an $80 million surplus.
This, according to both lawmakers and critics, is a result of “flat budgeting” – keeping the same amount of spending year to year, without fully accounting for inflation.
In the past, Republican leadership has said flat budgeting forces agencies to find efficiencies, but this philosophy also stretches agencies at a time when West Virginia has a wide variety of urgent needs. For example, during a House Finance Committee meeting Monday, state corrections officials said they need $17 million more each year to keep facilities running.
Lawmakers also spent $87 million to keep afloat the Public Employees Insurance Agency.
PEIA – the source of healthcare benefits for the state’s employees – had depleted a required reserve account because the costs of drugs and doctor’s visits are outstripping the cash on hand.
Brian Cunningham, director of PEIA, told the finance committee the agency is making moves to reduce costs and raising premiums for state employees, but it really needed the money to avoid a 20% midyear premium hike, or the agency being declared shaky by the financial markets.
On the floor, Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monogalia, said using surplus money to address ongoing costs won’t work, especially as surplus amounts continue to dwindle.
“There’s a lot of services that the people of West Virginia expect from their state government and deserve,” Hansen said. “If they don’t have surpluses anymore, government’s not going to be able to take care of those priorities.”
Read the full article.
Read the WVCBP’s official statement on the passage of the tax cut here.
The WV Criminal Law Reform Coalition is excited to invite you to their 2025 annual convening! The coalition is made up of organizations and people directly impacted who are working to reduce our reliance on incarceration and law enforcement in West Virginia. We work at the community and state levels to influence and enact policy that will break the school-to-prison pipeline, end the overpolicing of communities of color, stop the predatory practice of cash bail, confront the criminalization of poverty, and more.
Led by those with lived experience, this one-of-a-kind, in-person conference will be a shared space to connect and create winning criminal law reforms in West Virginia. The convening will take place January 13-15, 2025 at the John XXIII Retreat Center in Charleston.
You can register for the event here and learn more on the event landing page here.
The WV Board of Education recently convened to discuss a number of concerns impacting WV students, including inadequacies related to homeschooling policies and the troubling decline in public school enrollment resulting from the Hope Scholarship. A recent article, including data from the WVCBP, offers further details. Excerpt below:
Last month West Virginia Board of Education members learned the state has not received state-required assessments from many homeschooling families. Barely a third of the state’s homeschooled 11th graders submitted the paperwork last year. Assessments are required in 3rd, 5th, 8th and 11th grades.
At the board’s October meeting held Wednesday, board member Debra Sullivan called on the board and the state Department of Education (WVDE) to reevaluate the requirements in state policy regarding homeschool students.
Sullivan cited recent news stories involving the abuse of homeschooled children, as well as those low assessment numbers in her statement.
“These are our West Virginia children, so I would ask that we have a deep dive into what’s going on with them,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking when you hear news stories as recently as today about ways in which children are not being kept in safe environments.”
It is estimated there are around 24,000 students being homeschooled in West Virginia. Sullivan was joined in her call for a review by fellow board member Robert Dunlevy.
“That’s something we really should look into,” he said. “I know from a couple children in the area that are in homeschooling, and I’ve talked about this several times, they’re not being tested at all, and these children are out running around. They’re not being educated, and I think it’s our responsibility to see we can do something about that.”
School Closures
The board also approved a statewide waiver of Policy 6204 which sets the requirements for county boards of education to close or consolidate schools. The waiver will allow counties to complete the required procedures for closing a school on or before Feb. 28 of the calendar year in which the closures or consolidations are to be effective. The deadline to complete the procedures was previously set at Dec. 31 of the year prior to the effective closure.
The application for the waiver from Greenbrier County Schools states the additional time is needed due to “decreases and uncertainties in student enrolment, personnel shortages, and limited school finances” but that counties are still otherwise required to complete the procedures laid out in the policy.
Sullivan called school closures “the most heartbreaking things” the board has to deal with. She cited analysis from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy that shows 53 of the state’s 55 counties experienced enrollment loss between the 2022-23 and the 2023-24 school years.
“Of course, that affects state funding,” Sullivan said. “And in eight of those counties, in eight of the 53, the number of students not already receiving Hope Scholarships exceeded the enrollment decline. Meaning that if we didn’t have this voucher program, the county would not be having a negative enrollment. I thought that was fascinating.“
She went on to cite the analysis’ finding that 52 percent of enrollment decline across the state was attributable to the Hope Scholarship, and concluded by asking what the WVDE and the board are doing to help “stop the bleed.”
Read the full article.
The Black Voter Impact Initiative and Black by God, the founders of West Virginia’s Black Policy Day, are hosting an exciting webinar series focused on specific aspects of the Black Policy Agenda. This is an excellent opportunity to deepen your knowledge and engage with experts across various issue areas ahead of the 2025 West Virginia legislative session.
You can register for the webinar series here.
You can share what you would like to see prioritized in the Black Policy Agenda by filling out this survey.
Mark your calendars for Black Policy Day 2025, which will take place on March 10, 2025.
The current system of reimbursing child care providers in West Virginia is based on the attendance of the child, not their enrollment. This approach often leaves providers at a financial disadvantage when children are absent due to illness or other reasons.
According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, stable funding based on enrollment rather than attendance can provide more predictable income for providers and support higher quality care. By adopting this approach, we can ensure that our child care providers continue offering their invaluable services without worrying about inconsistent finances.
Please join us in signing this petition and helping us advocate for a fairer reimbursement system for our West Virginia child care providers.
