Question: at the beginning of his last year as governor, Jim Justice promised to take West Virginia’s economy on a “rocket ship ride.” Well, where did the state land? Answer: At the same place it started. Last week, CNBC, the business cable network, announced its annual analysis of “America’s Top States for Business.” As I have done with previous CNBC surveys, here are this year’s rankings compared to selected prior years:

That’s not much of a rocket ship ride; WV’s ship didn’t go very far – the state is up in a couple of categories, and down in a few others. (Obviously, it could have been worse: think of an Elon Musk rocket ride.)

In his successful campaign for governor and through most of this year, Patrick Morrisey replaced Justice’s “rocket ship ride” with a “backyard brawl" metaphor for how the West Virginia would defeat its neighboring states:

Gov. Patrick Morrisey has begun his press conference. This will focus on his Backyard Brawl plan to make West Virginia competitive with neighboring states on taxes, regulations, etc. Focus is on energy, infrastructure, and competitiveness. pic.twitter.com/ZkMo0H1xPk

— Steven Allen Adams (@stevenadamswv) January 23, 2025

However, West Virginia doesn’t appear to be winning that fight:

The biggest winner in Gov. Morrisey’s backyard brawl appears, for now, to be Pennsylvania. The Keystone State landed a massive data center project fueled by gas at a decommissioned coal plant. West Virginia, take note. https://t.co/vsVLZEWJff

— Curtis L. Tate 🤷‍♂️ (@tatecurtis) April 2, 2025

New state jobs data came out today, and 46 states + PR gained jobs over the last year!

Fastest: South Carolina (+2.7%), Idaho (+2.6%), Utah (+2.5%), Hawaii (+2.1%), New Mexico (2.1%)

Slowest: West Virginia (-1.4%), Virgin Islands (-0.8%), Iowa (-0.5%), DC (-0.4%), Maine (-0.1%) pic.twitter.com/7GYBLsW2Nq

— Joey Politano 🏳️‍🌈 (@JosephPolitano) June 24, 2025

Morrisey’s reaction? What we need is a new plan:

Today I announced “Grow West Virginia,” an economic plan to accomplish growth in five areas:

✅Grow paychecks by reducing or eliminating taxes and fees.

✅Grow jobs by helping our current businesses expand and attracting new businesses to the Mountain State.

✅Grow the free… pic.twitter.com/YGV6tDs2ed

— Governor Patrick Morrisey (@wvgovernor) July 10, 2025

Yeah, that’ll work, Patrick. When in doubt, change your slogan.

And what about other state business surveys? Similar to CNBC, the recent U.S. News “best state” rankings put WV at 46th place – the same as last year:

And finally, Wallethub ranked the state’s economy at 50th and that same source, earlier this year, ranked the state 51st in income level.