By Esteban Fernandez, Times West Virginian
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — West Virginia is the place to do business. That’s the message lawmakers have been keen to spread as the state pursues policies and initiatives designed to encourage businesses to come to the Mountain State.
Collectively, the effort is called Choose West Virginia. Mitch Carmichael, secretary of the Department of Economic Development, described the initiative as an all encompassing effort that ranges across different activities, from legislative changes, judicial reforms, regulatory and education reforms in the pursuit of creating an environment that recruits business to West Virginia. The initiative also has a sales arm which markets the advantages of West Virginia to national and international companies.
And it appears to be working. LG Electronics announced a $700 million investment into the state at the start of the month. However, despite the success the initiative has had in bringing business to the state, one question remains. What is the best way to translate that success into real world gains for average West Virginians?
“A number of these announcements have happened in border counties, and they’re only in a handful of counties in the state,” Sean O’Leary, senior policy analyst for the Charleston-based West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said. “For most of the people, that means any economic growth they generate is not going to be broadly shared throughout the state. It’s gonna be concentrated in a small area, and shared with Ohio, shared with Maryland, shared with Pennsylvania.”
In other words, O’Leary argued, for the typical West Virginian, it’s not going to mean a whole lot. In a factsheet published by the Center on Jan. 9, O’Leary looked at employment growth throughout the state as it recovered from the pandemic. Although total employment has mostly returned to pre-pandemic levels, there is great variation throughout the state.