Beckley Register-Herald – In August the federal government announced West Virginia has the lowest civilian workforce participation, on Tuesday it was learned the state has a 7.6 unemployment rate, the nation’s highest. Read
Then on Thursday the bad economic news continued. A report shows nearly 20 percent of West Virginians live in poverty and more alarming a quarter of its children reside in homes earning about $24,000 annually.
However, the statistics is as bad for the Beckley Metro area, which encompasses the roughly 125,000 people living in Fayette and Raleigh counties. This area which has nearly a 13 percent poverty rate, compared to that statewide average of 18.3 percent, the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey found.
The Census numbers shed a bright light on poverty in the Mountain State, which had the nation’s ninth highest rate. Of the 1.8 million people in the state 380,000 residents lived below the federal poverty line of $24,250 for a family of four.
