Facing obstacles, state leaders must work together to move economy forward

The same day, we reported that the Kids Count study showed state children dropped from 37th to 42nd nationally in child well-being. That study takes into account family and community setting, economic well-being, education and health.

Both Margie Hale, West Virginia Kids Count director, and Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, say there is a correlation between rising unemployment and declining child well-being ratings.

Hale said West Virginia has been slower to come out of the Great Recession than other states, while Boettner said it’s clear the Mountain State has “fewer jobs today than we did in 2008.”

It would be easy to lay the blame at the feet of the Obama administration and its War on Coal. And make no mistake, they share in the blame.

As Staff Writer Jeremiah Shelor reported, West Virginia has lost 2,900 jobs in extractive industries in the past year — but those numbers also include oil, gas and logging.

While that drop hurts, the largest decrease has been in construction jobs, which have dropped 4,300 since June 2014.

“It looks like the state is struggling a bit,” Jeff Green told Shelor. Green is director of research, information and analysis for WorkForce West Virginia.

“Typically, the unemployment rates tend to go down in the summer, and they’re not doing that this year.”

Since January, the state’s unemployment rate has risen 1.5 percent.

Boettner and Hale both say that the state’s lack of economic development, which would provide better paying jobs and financial security, hurts West Virginia children.

“There’s a big difference between economic growth and development,” Boettner told Staff Writer Brittany Murray. “We have the growth, but we’ve never really had the development.”

Hale points to the minimum wage, which she says needs to be raised so that the term “working poor” is eliminated.

“You shouldn’t work and be poor. That’s really a tragic thing.”

Hale says growing up in poverty is a vicious circle unless efforts are made to break the cycle.

“If we don’t have some programs to strengthen their lives, these are kids that will not graduate from high school; they will get married or have kids young, or they will get themselves in trouble with the law — all things that cost society a great deal of money,” Hale said.

Obviously, these are not new problems to West Virginia. And state leaders in the past have tried to find solutions.

But so far, they have been unable to come up with solutions that last for the long term.

Too often, discussions on these issues fall into philosophical battles between Democrats and Republicans, which have led to piecemeal efforts at best.

But political philosophy doesn’t put food on the table. And with 27 percent of the state’s children living in poverty (including 30.4 percent right here in Harrison County), something concrete needs to be done.

We’re hopeful this double dose of bad news will serve as a wake-up call to state lawmakers, who need to work together to find solutions.

We would encourage leaders to consider changing the way West Virginia doles out economic development dollars and tax breaks.

It should be imperative that the focus is on job creation, with an emphasis on good-paying jobs with benefits. Obvious examples would be developments like the proposed cracker plant in Wood County, the Toyota plant in Buffalo and the Macy’s distribution center and planned Procter & Gamble facility in the Eastern Panhandle.

But leaders must also be willing to invest more money in technology industries, small businesses and the state’s overall infrastructure.

Again, all these efforts should be transparent in terms of disclosing the potential for jobs created and investment in respective communities.

State leaders must work to leverage the state’s strengths into more long-term career opportunities for residents.

And at the same time, at least for the short term, West Virginia must invest more money in programs that serve as a safety net for our most vulnerable residents — our children.

Far too many children are raised in households burdened with addiction, oftentimes traced back for several generations.

We must come up with rehabilitation programs that help adults restore their lives, instead of allowing them to live them out in a state-supported haze.

Can we fix all these issues? Probably not.

But we can’t sit idly by and watch more and more families fall by the wayside. We can’t allow more of our children to grow up in poverty while others leave for greener pastures elsewhere.

In terms of quality of life, West Virginia is a great place in some respects. As lifelong Mountaineers, we want it to thrive.

But the state’s failure to diversify its economy and leverage its resources has led to costly problems that must be addressed to allow for a brighter future.