The chairman of the West Virginia House of Delegates Health Committee, Del. Evan Worrell, R-Cabell, held a round table in front of the session on February 11, 2025 (Perry Bennett | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
West Virginia is consistently at the top 10 of the poorest states In the nation and yet, instead of doing something to support the residents, legislators continue to hire invoices to make things hard for them.
In 2023 over 16.7% West Virginians lived in poverty, which is 5.6% higher than the national rate.
The medium household income In the mountain state is 57,917 US dollars. Families of four children who earn $ 55,500 or less, qualify for the special additional nutritional program for women, infants and children, also qualified as food brands. In 2024, 277,400 West VirginiansOr about 16% of the state population used SNAP advantages.
People are fighting to pay bills. Some cannot find childcare so that they cannot work to make ends meet.
And what do legislators do to support these problems? They are worried about what is in their kitchen cabinets.
Republicans believe that people who need snaps shouldn’t buy sweets. House bill 2350 would prevent snap recipients from doing so Buy sweets and soda. The legislator presented no figures on how much money is spent on these items. Sorry for children, the government did not say a birthday cake.
Some Republicans also want Prohibition of artificial dyes In food because they believe that the dyes lead to behavior problems in children. Although the dyes Do not affect all children and food with natural dyes are significant More costly legislators do not want to give the parents a choice whether their children can eat cone or flaming flamin.
Just to be clear: vaccines that prevent life -threatening diseases that could infect entire communities should be a parental choice, but not artificial dyes.
The legislator did not stop monitoring the kitchens of Snap Housing households. West Virginia currently has a voluntary SNAP employment and training program, but legislators want to make it mandatory for all capable adults up to 59 years, unless they have a liberation.
Under Snap E&T, those who have no liberation between 18 and 54 years of age must work at least 20 hours a week, or they are subject to a time limit of their SNAP advantages of three months within three years.
What about someone who works part -time in retail or food service and your hours are shortened under 20 hours?
Or let’s say that someone makes up their snap advantages because it took four months to find great work for the federal government, and then a billionaire comes in a year later and fires them. Does this person just have to starve until they find a novel job?
In other states with mandatory snapp-e & t programs “it increases both nutritional uncertainty and the intended result of the SNAP-E & T program, which is to combine people with tools, resources and opportunities for self-sufficiency” to connect to tools, resources and possibilities. ” said Caitlin CookDirector of advocacy and public order for the Mountainine Food Bank.
Other invoices are also indirectly aimed at poor people.
Look at the Hope scholarship. This program takes money from public schools – which are free for everyone – for tuition fees at religious, private and charter schools. Headmaster say that the Hope scholarship is partially guilt for the Close of 25 public schools.
Legislators are content to say that the scholarship helps all families, but the 4,400 US dollar does not cover full tuition fees in most of these schools. And now our free public schools have to deal with fewer financial resources, and if they are forced to close, children have to travel to school.
And then there are our homeless. What does the legislator do for you? Do you take more money for protection to build more beds? Do you create more programs to bring them back to the workforce? You have introduced A The invoice Homeless of homeless people from sleeping from sleeping to public property, and listed fines of up to 500 US dollars for those who violate them.
Yes, calculate money that you don’t have. Or bring them to prison, where they are accommodated and fed with taxpayers so that the legislator can also be enraged about it. It seems that financing accommodations would be the more bright choice in the long run.
And as if that is not enough damage, they continue. While the state already has an almost abortion ban, House bill 2712 Remove exceptions for victims of rape and incest. This only affects those who do not have the money to travel from the state to get the care they need.
The same with Senate Bill 299which would forbid hormone treatment for minors with gender dysphoria with suicide risk. Those who are lucky enough to live near the state border or to have money to travel can still receive a life -saving gender -specific care.
The Republicans in West Virginia want to keep them poor, ill and under their control. Ask your motif in every invoice. Ask how this calculation actually helps most West Virginians. Where are they Childcare Bills? Where are the bills for cleaning up drinking water? What about increasing the minimum wage? If it doesn’t fit into the Maga game book, you just don’t care.
