Economy

The New York Times ran an opinion piece Feb. 2, 2024 by Peter Coy entitled, "This Tech Titan Wants to Turn West Virginia Into a ‘Start-Up State’".   in it, the author mentions quite a few facts about West Virginia's current economy.  Things like:

• "it is tied for last with Mississippi in the share of adults with a bachelor’s degree or more"

• "only Mississippi has a lower life expectancy at birth"

• "only Mississippi has a lower rate of participation in the labor force"

• it "has had the nation’s lowest population growth since 1950 and is the only state that lost population from 2000 to 2022", and

• "in  2021, West Virginia’s rate [of age-adjusted death rate from drug overdoses] of 90.9 per 100,000 people was 60 percent higher than that of Tennessee, the next highest state, and nearly three times the national average, according to the National Center for Health Statistics"

If you listened to  Governor Justice's State of the State address, these statistics may come as a surprise.  In his address, Justice painted a rosy picture.  "In the race with Mississippi all the time. Who's going to be dead last? And we're not, we're not that now."  Well...actually we still are.  

There are two things that could really help the situation in West Virginia:

1. The legislature could concentrate on the budget, instead of on trying to "solve" WV's apparent social problems, and

2. The governor and legislature could commit to spending tax dollars on things like teachers salaries and benefits, corrections officers salaries and benefits, EMS personnel, and all the other things better funded by the government than by private citizens, rather than pretending there is a surplus of funds that needs to be returned to tax payers.

I suspect the legislature concentrates on social issues, because those bills don't involve spending tax payer money (though they are just as costly in other ways). I am all for trying to do more with less (i.e. spending tax payer dollars as carefully as I spend my own -- and I can pinch a penny so hard that Lincoln squeals).  But I am not in favor of false economy, nnor claiming falsehoods about the economy.

To get WV's economy back on track, we need to invest in education, in our public workforce, in our communities, in healthcare, and in our infrastructure.  These investments will pay large dividends.  We do not need to spend time on bills whose sole purpose is to discriminate against some people whom others feel uncomfortable with, or on bills solving problems that don't exist, or on bills so vague or poorly written that perhaps only the persons writing them know exactly what was intended.  The path to WV prosperty runs squarely through the legislature, and the current legislature has volunteered to be sidelined.

Economy vs. Education: Industries are looking for an educated workforce.  Additionally, couples having, or wanting to have children are looking for places that have good quality education.

Economy vs. Equity: People are more likely to move to places where they will not be discriminated against.  They are, in fact, likely to move away from places that do discriminate, though the effect may take a while to see.  Further, the state will become stronger as a whole with greater diversity.  In addition, places like the 'Coalfield Communities' need more than just studies to get back on their feet.  There are great, untapped resources among those peoples, and this state needs to start spending money on them in order to tap into their potential.