However, the state still trails the nation in terms of average job growth and home value growth.

“West Virginia has tended to lag the nation along a lot of metrics,” said West Virginia University economist John Deskins.

According to data published by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce in its 2025 “Campaign for Jobs Digest,” West Virginia has had the third-lowest rate of job growth over the last 10 years.

This nearly last place rate of growth has come about during the same time when corporate income tax, business franchise tax and personal income tax have all been cut.

“We have an uneducated population. We have low levels of educational attainment. Those go hand in hand with growth. And then when we shrink our budget the way we’ve been doing the past few years, you’re not making investments in education, infrastructure and quality of life — all of those things that lead to growth,” said West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy Senior Policy Analyst Sean O’Leary.

But Deskins said it’s “still a good sign that we’re growing.”

The greatest rate of growth has been in the state’s health care sector, O’Leary said.

“We’re an older state, we are an unhealthy state. That’s part of the reason why we’re seeing such growth in that area and not in other areas of the economy,” O’Leary said.

Because growth has come from health care, and so many of the state’s residents rely on a robust health care system, O’Leary said, federal cuts to Medicaid are especially worrying.

“Although, we need to diversify the economy … it’s just as important to protect that one area that is growing, which is at risk right now,” O’Leary said.

“There are good things happening here. But we need to accelerate that growth what it already is growing and expand out geographically,” Deskins said, noting that only 20 counties have seen recent growth.

“We need growth in the other 35 counties that are basically just doing nothing,” Deskins said.

O’Leary said a greater focus on higher education affordability and accessibility are important to generating greater job growth and labor participation as these current rates among collect educated West Virginians are already closer to national averages.

West Virginia’s unemployment rate in August was 3.8%, while nationally 4.3% of job seekers were without employment. Although it remains below the national average, West Virginia’s unemployment did slightly tick up in August.

“That slight rise in unemployment may very well be a good thing,” Deskins said, as for the past several years since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment has been “unusually” and “persistently low.”

“When COVID hit, a lot of people left the labor force: they went back to be a stay-at-home parent, they went back to school, they went out of the workforce to retire early. And ever since COVID, we’ve seen some of those people come back into the workforce. That has mostly finished nationally, but West Virginia has been a little bit behind,” Deskins said.

“So, I’m not surprised that we’re seeing that because if more of those people who left the workforce before are coming back into the workforce, and if they don’t find jobs immediately, that will lead to a rise in the measured unemployment rate. But that’s actually a good thing that now that they’ve started to look for work again.”

However, it is possible that West Virginia’s unemployment may be lower than the national average due to the rate of local residents that receive entitlement transfers from the federal government.

“If you’re receiving disability assistance from the government or retirement assistance from the government, then you’re not counted as unemployed. And if more people (are covered by) the social safety net, that can cause the unemployment rate to fall,” Deskins said.

In 2022, West Virginia had the highest rate of government transfer dependency at 28.9%, while the national average was 17.6%, according to the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization. This means in 2022, nearly a third of all West Virginians received transfers from the federal government.

O’Leary on the other hand, said he has not seen any data to suggest a higher rate of government transfers has resulted in a lower measured unemployment rate.

“It’s mainly a demographic thing. We have a high level of transfers because we have a high number of seniors in the state,” he said. “We’re right there with the national average when it comes to unemployment.”

West Virginian homes increased in value by 3.3% year-over-year, which was outpaced by the national average, which saw a growth rate of 3.8%.

According to the Chamber’s 2025 “Campaign for Jobs Digest,” West Virginia has the 46th-lowest 25-year housing price appreciation rate.