CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — The State of the States analysis, crafted from scholars around the country is looking at all 50 states for the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“West Virginia is improving on actually quite a few measures,” Board Chair of the study Douglas Harris said. “Economic output, productivity, air quality, child mortality, the murder rate, all of those, this is going back to 1990. We’re looking at a long trend line here, but all of those measures have been improving, which is a bright spot.”
While the Mountain State ranks last in average education years, Harris said statewide trends are following the national uptick in increasing years of education.
The study shows academic test scores at 46th in the nation, young adults employed or in school is at 47th.
Other scores are towards the bottom as well.
“The main measure for physical health we had is life expectancy and West Virginia is at the bottom on that,” Harris said. “Education also not doing so well. Test scores, years of education, the percentage of adults who are employed or in school are all near the bottom.”
While the study highlights struggles in West Virginia, notable improvements include the state outpacing the national average for improving air quality, which puts the state at 27th amongst its peers.
“Productivity tends to improve over time as we make new innovations and learn new and better ways of making products and creating new products,” Harris said. “Air quality, there’s been an effort to restrict emissions of dangerous particles. Some of that’s public policy.”
Harris said when comparing the U.S. economy to other countries things look pretty great. Mental health though as a category is worrisome to the study’s authors. With West Virginia being a prime example, ranking near or at the bottom for depression and fatal overdoses.
“So we see declining life satisfaction, we see increasing depression, anxiety, increasing suicides and fatal overdoses. So there’s something not right here that the idea that income buys happiness has always maybe never been completely true.”
A link to the full study can be found here.
