| COMMENT By Bob Weaver
West Virginia get more government money per capita than any other state in the nation, mostly because of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
West Virginia gets 26.2 percent of its annual income from federal government programs, while people in the rest of the nation get, on average, 16.7 percent of their income from government programs.
The funding is often referred to as "hand outs," but much of it is received by retired workers.
The state has one of the highest aging populations in the USA, and is listed among the poorest states in per capita and median income and has among the country's highest number of children living in poverty.
Not unlike other states, tens of thousands of blue collar workers have lost their jobs with globalization, from high paying jobs in the steel industry, once the state's biggest employer, to factory work that paid minimum wage.
It is easy to blame the welfare structure, and it is a real problem, but now people with work genes are at a loss.
In this region, there are few job opportunities for blue collar people needing a job, nearly all have been moved to other counties that pay less than minimum wage with no benefits, jobs that local people once drove to in regional counties to make a living.
In West Virginia, the largest employers for blue collar workers, once referred to as the middle class, is WalMart, retail and fast food.
American has become a country that manufactures few things, the economy based on conspicuous consumption.
WVs Charleston and Washington politicos have clung to providing jobs with the state's bountiful natural resource extractables, failing to diversify.
It is fascinating, with many dependent on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, that West Virginians have turned to the Republican party to correct a myriad of problems, and will likely, for the first time, have a congressional delegation that is mostly Republican this fall.
A key piece in Republican platforms is to reform, privatize or do away with such "socialist programs," and if that happens, the Mountain State will take the biggest hit.
The Charleston Gazette's editorial board said it is not likely that most West Virginian voters are such principled conservatives, most still registered Democrat, but have been polarized by "God, Guns and Gays," with an overwhelming dislike for a black president.
Legislatures in most of American's so-called red states rail about such government programs, and have effectively opposed an increase in minimum wage, saying that it will cause job losses and small businesses to collapse.
See
W.Va. Gets More Federal Money Than Any Other State by
By Paul Nyden for the Charleston Gazette.
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