West Virginia continues to be closed for business. While many of our political leaders like to paint a rosy picture of our state’s economic outlook, real economic indicators don’t lie. Recently released figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis indicate that West Virginia’s economic growth slowed to 0.1% over the past year – a rate that is considerably lower than the growth rate of all of our neighboring states as well as the national rate. West Virginia also ranked second worst in the nation in per capita real gross domestic product, again only managing slightly better than Mississippi.

Meanwhile, State Senator Brooks McCabe pointed out the real possibility that Charleston’s overall population could drop below the 50,000 person mark when the 2010 census is completed. “If we’re saying we’re open for business, and don’t have even one city over 50,000, I would argue we’re being naïve,” McCabe frankly noted.

Until our legal system is competitive with those of other states, especially our neighbors, West Virginia will continue to rank as one of the worst states in the nation for business.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 5:56 am and is filed under General Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.