Some sun, mostly clouds in W.Va. Chamber’s state economic forecast

The economic forecast for West Virginia includes some dark clouds, according to a new West Virginia Chamber of Commerce report.

The West Virginia Campaign for Jobs 2024 Digest, which was released last week, shows the state with the lowest 10-year job growth rate and 49^th lowest in personal income.

The chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party said the report shows that a decade of Republican control in the state has done nothing.

The Mountain State also was near the bottom in several of key business metrics listed in the report, such as venture capital investments (49^th), research and development spending (48^th), NAEP scores for 4^th and 8^th grades in reading (49^th and 48^th, respectively) and in math (49^th in both) as well as 25-year housing price appreciation (48^th).

“Well, we’re 50^th in job creation over a 10-year period,” Chamber President Steve Roberts told The West Virginia Record. “That is one of the bigger statistics that jump out to us, and that isn’t good.”

Roberts said a good way to look at the issues is to look at the gross domestic product on a per capita basis. As a global example, he said American workers product much more than their counterparts in many other countries because workers here are better educated and better trained.

If you make that same comparison with West Virginia and other states, there is a problem.

“Silicon Valley workers are producing more than workers in West Virginia,” Roberts said. “It’s a highly educated, highly skilled workforce out there. We have to find a way to attract a more highly educated workforce here.

Roberts cited the facility Intel is building in central Ohio as an example.

“They were drawn there by all of the universities in Ohio,” Roberts said. “All of these colleges and universities in Ohio are producing such highly qualified students. So, they (Intel) know they’re going to have campuses nearby to recruit highly skilled graduates. And that isn’t a slam on our colleges and universities here in West Virginia. It’s a simple fact that they (Ohio) have more volume than we do. We need to increase our volume.”

Still, some of the key metrics in the Chamber report show promise.

Those include tax burden (14^th), business taxes (eighth), residential effective property tax rate (13^th), industrial property tax (11^th), hourly wage of production workers (fifth) and unemployment insurance tax cost per covered employee (fourth).

And, Roberts said the elimination of the business franchise tax was a big boost for businesses.

“We want to acknowledge progress when we see it,” Roberts said. “There has been some progress in the legal fairness arena. We haven’t leapfrogged everyone else, but we have made progress. Those types of laws now are more like the laws in other states. Which is what we needed to do. We need a more level and more fair playing field.”

But then, he said the education numbers also stick out in the other direction.

“Clearly, if you’re running there in those measurements, you can say we’re not even keeping up with the neighboring states let alone the national averages,” Roberts said. “We’re not competing there.

“Whatever it is, let’s have a discussion about that. Let’s see what we can do to help get those scores up. Many of the decisionmakers here live in districts where the schools are fine. But for everybody else in West Virginia, those kids are not doing fine.”

Roberts said we need to acknowledge that problem “without getting mad at each other” and to have real conversations about the issue.

“The whole state pays the price for those kids not being able to keep up,” he said. “It’s not just a college question. These students have to come out of high school with the same skills that kids from other states have. What do we do for those kids? About 62 percent of our population is rural. They’re the majority, yet they’re in the most distressed schools.”

Overall, Roberts said state leaders need to follow one of the most basic rules for contractors: measure twice, cut once.

“We’re getting an apples-to-apples look at how we’re doing. If we take a good hard long look at it, we can see we’ve made progress, but we can’t let up now. We need to make more progress.”

And that includes legal reform.

Roberts did praise lawmakers and the state Supreme Court for improving many issues that affected the lackluster reputation of the state court system for decades. But he said there still is more to do.

“We have a rule of law, and we have stability at the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals,” Roberts said. “We’ve gone through decades in the past when we didn’t have stability or the rule of law mentality with the court. The Legislature would pass a law, then the Supreme Court would say, ‘We don’t like that law,’ and find a way to throw it out.

Roberts cited old workers’ compensation laws that routinely were overturned by the Supreme Court.

“For years and years, we had the largest unfunded Workers’ Compensation fund,” he said. “We were awarding 21 or 22 times the national average of total permanent disability awards. The Legislature would try to fix that, but then the Supreme Court would throw the changes out.

“We worked with legislators on those laws, and we all wanted to make it very, very clear to pass laws the Supreme Court couldn’t monkey with. We made sure the language was so specific and clear that the court couldn’t do that.”

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The state Democratic Party said the report highlights failure by Republicans to address key economic issues that “continue to hold back working families and businesses in West Virginia.”

“This is unacceptable, and West Virginians deserve better. This isn’t a ‘mixed bag;’ it’s an empty bag and West Virginia workers have been left holding it.”

Pushkin said state Republican policies favor “a select few while leaving everyday West Virginians behind.”

“While Republican leaders boast about minor gains in business rankings, the reality is that West Virginians are not seeing the benefits,” Pushkin said. “We’re ranked dead last in job growth, and nearly half of our population isn’t even participating in the workforce. This is the economic legacy of Republican leadership. Ten years ago, Republicans promised us they would deliver an economic renaissance in West Virginia, instead, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, they’ve left West Virginia workers flat on their backs.

“What we need are policies that create real, sustainable economic growth, not empty promises that keep us at the bottom of national rankings. It’s clear that Republican leadership doesn’t have a plan to turn this around.”

“If it weren’t for the once in a generation investment by the Biden-Harris administration through the Jobs and Infrastructure Act, the CHIPs Act, and Inflation Reduction Act, there’d be no positive news in this report at all,” Pushkin said. “The people of West Virginia deserve leadership that will bring good-paying jobs, invest in our workforce, and create opportunities for everyone — not just a select few.

“The current economic status quo is unacceptable, and it’s time for real change.”

Story by Chris Dickerson, WV Record

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