MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Despite recent economic gains, West Virginia’s economic comeback may be limited.
According to Bloomberg View’s Justin Fox, the state’s growth may be blocked because of its overall uniform economy, lower than average percentage of citizens in the labor force and the lack of metropolitan areas.
Fox wrote in his May 25 piece things are improving marginally; the state’s employment-to-population ratio is at 50.6 percent. It was below 50 percent from December 2013 to June 2016.
Fox said despite the recent comeback of metallurgical coal, the state’s labor-force participation rate in April was near an all-time low at 53.1 percent. The national average was 62.9 percent.
“Why is labor-force participation in West Virginia so low? One reason is that so many people there are disabled,” Fox wrote. “The state and neighbor Kentucky lead the country in the percentage of residents receiving Supplemental Security Income.”
While there are multiple factors contributing to the percentage, Fox said two of the causes are an aging population and the dangers of coal mining.
Fox later said during an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline” the lack of a metropolitan area has also negatively affected the Mountain State.
“Manufacturing employment has become this smaller part of employment,” he said. “Manufacturing often made the most sense when it came to relocating if you were manufacturing roads or whatever else.”
But Fox said most metropolitan areas have at least 500,000 people with an array of employment opportunities where couples can find jobs in their respective fields.
“So many jobs these days involve working with other people to solve problems together,” he told program host Hoppy Kercheval. “You need to be able to attract a lot of good people to do those things.”
Fox pointed out Morgantown as an example, saying because of West Virginia University’s presence, its population has grown by 13.4 percent since 2008.
“It’s got a major research university, which seems to be the one big thing besides being a big metro area that seems to have been a good thing for growth over the past few years,” he said.