An economic scorecard is out and the news isn’t good for the Mountain State.
West Virginia ranks near the bottom economically, 48 out of 50 to be exact.
Our border states, however, are all ranked in the top half which causes even more problems for West Virginia.
The CNBC Global Chief Financial Officers council said it scored all 50 states on about 60 items, including how competitive the state is, workforce, and the list goes on.
One Economics Professor at Bethany College weighed in on this latest study.
Economics Professor at Bethany College, Dr. Wilfrid Csaplar Jr. said, “A lot of it has to do with infrastructure and education where we do have some good education but a lot of the people once they get educated they leave the state.”
On the other hand Dr. Csaplar said that there are some good aspects of being a poor state.
“That is that the work force is cheap. So the cost of doing business is you have cheap labor, you have inexpensive rent, because we have so much coal we have inexpensive utilities,” said Dr. Csaplar.
How does West Virginia climb up the ladder?
Dr. Csaplar said, “I think the Government needs to spend some money on the education system. I think they need to spend some money on infrastructure and to cut some of the regulations.”
Dr. Csaplar also said that the state hasn’t necessarily picked the wrong jobs but keeps jobs that are disappearing.
“We need to diversify. Right now we’re just basically coal, fracking, and health care and coal and fracking unfortunately in a decade or two they are going to be really dead,” said Dr. Csaplar.
He said he loves West Virginia and he wants to see more industries come to the State.
