West Virginia continues to lose citizens (60,000 since 2010) and the loss will not just affect its tax base – WV will also lose political power as it gives up a House seat. What can be done? During the legislative session, Governor Justice and the legislature came up with a plan whereby the state will pay $12,000 to lure workers to the state. Here is CNN’s description of the program:

The $12,000 West Virginia is offering is paid over two years, with $10,000 divided in monthly payments for the first year and $2,000 paid at the end of the second year, according to the program's website. If you move early, you keep the money that you've earned so far.

The incentive package also includes a year's worth of free outdoor recreation, bringing the total value to $20,000, the website said. That includes a year of access to activities such as whitewater rafting and downhill skiing, as well as two years of free outdoor gear rentals, such as camping gear or paddleboarding equipment.

This was announced in April with a lot of publicity, but three months later, it is hard to find any information on how it is doing. An exception is a report and video from Politico that at least mentions the reward. Here is the report and here is the video:

The population is fleeing, jobs are disappearing and coal isn’t coming back.

West Virginia’s boldest plan to reverse the slide is bribing white-collar workers to move from out of state. https://t.co/3o9org9ev7 pic.twitter.com/KC6CHgeLlS

— POLITICO (@politico) July 9, 2021

The video is well-done.

Looking for other reactions

There was a more personal response which came soon after the program was announced. Jamie Lynn Crofts, a blogger at Wonkette, explained why she wasn't taking the state up on its offer:

No, $12k Is Not Enough To Make Me Move Back to West Virginia

She explained that the recent legislative session provided ample excuses. And after pointing to the regressive state income tax overhaul that was considered by the legislature, Crofts noted:

The state that has been hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, and which is already in the midst of one of the worst HIV outbreaks in the country, decided to criminalize needle exchange programs that follow the CDC's best practices for harm reduction. Trans kids have been banned from participating in sports that match their gender identities. The legislature exempted gun and ammo manufacturers from state sales and use taxes, opened up concealed carry permits to out-of-state residents, passed a bill saying the state can't close gun stores or shooting ranges during states of emergency, and banned the state from enforcing federal gun laws.

And it’s not just the most recent legislature:

Don't forget that all of the horror of West Virginia's 2021 legislative session is in addition to all of the other ways the state has been trying to go back to the stone age. West Virginia has discrimination against women and people who can get pregnant literally written into the state constitution, no statewide protections for LGBTQ people, some of the laxest gun laws in the country, and a wannabe supervillain attorney general who helped incite the January 6 insurrection.

Okay, Crofts is a political liberal and West Virginia is one of the most politically conservative states in the nation. This is not much of a match; it would probably take a much larger monetary incentive to bring her back to the state. (If at all.) But Croft, like most of her generation of young professionals is a social liberal. And almost every survey of her generation suggests that they are far more socially liberal than older generations -- especially those who rule this state. West Virginia’s hard-right stated positions on abortion, the environment, minority and lgbtq rights, marijuana laws, and equality issues means there will be few in that generation that are willing to accept the state’s conservatism and reactionary policies on social issues. Why would they come to this state?

Finally, there is the environment and the state's love affair with carbon-based fuels. Of course, in the 20th century, the coal industry ruled the state. Later, despite the known harms to the environment and humans caused by coal and natural gas, the Trump administration supported West Virginia's argument that environmental regulations on carbon-based fuels were too strict and then acted accordingly. In the fall of 2018, however, the Associated Press published a widely-circulated article and map detailing an EPA analysis of the health effects of President Trump's rollback of Obama's EPA standards. Here was the EPA's conclusion according to the AP:

An EPA analysis says those pollutants would increase under Trump’s plan, when compared to what would happen under the Obama plan. And that, it says, would lead to thousands more heart attacks, asthma problems and other illnesses that would not have occurred.

And here was the most important section for those who lived in West Virginia (or might consider moving there):

Nationally, the EPA says, 350 to 1,500 more people would die each year under Trump’s plan. But it’s the northern two-thirds of West Virginia and the neighboring part of Pennsylvania that would be hit hardest, by far, according to Trump’s EPA.

Trump’s rollback would kill an extra 1.4 to 2.4 people a year for every 100,000 people in those hardest-hit areas, compared to under the Obama plan, according to the EPA analysis. For West Virginia’s 1.8 million people, that would be equal to at least a couple dozen additional deaths a year.

The map:

Once a person saw this map, why would he or she purposely move themselves and/or their family to that red-orange-yellow area called West Virginia?