Cardinal's Policy Priorities for the 2024 Legislative Session An annual tradition, the Cardinal Institute released its main policy priorities ahead of West Virginia’s 2024 legislative session. This year, session runs from January 10 through March 9. These priorities represent the main policy reforms that the Cardinal Institute believes will best serve West Virginia’s 1.79 million…

The West Virginia Hope Scholarship continues to innovate, expanding access to students across the Mountain State. On December 13, 2023, the Hope Scholarship program announced that applications to the program will soon be accepted year-round. The new cycle will include a system of prorated funding for students who apply mid-year to pursue alternatives to West…

Benefit Cliffs Put West Virginians In A Tough Position The most recent report published here at the Cardinal Institute highlights benefit cliffs and how they affect the individuals and families who are counting on safety net assistance to meet needs during challenging economic times. My fellow blog contributor, Jacob McCoy, has a great post from…

Nearly A Decade of Change in West Virginia It boggles the mind what’s happened to West Virginia since 2014. There is no doubt since Republicans became West Virginia’s legislative majority in 2014 that the state’s policy landscape has changed. The average West Virginian in 2013 would scarcely believe it. The past nine years have been…

Benefit Cliffs Prevent Work We have all heard, at one time or another, terms that look to describe or deride people who take advantage of public benefits programs. I won’t list them here, but we’ve all heard them. These terms are the result of sometimes righteous frustration with individuals or families that live on the…

Economic Research Hasn't Always Been This Way The state of economic and social science research has come a long way since it began. While sitting in a seminar about trends in the economics profession, the use of data in research was one of the topics that provoked personal thoughts. I regard myself as an empirical…

A Time To Be Thankful This Thanksgiving, I am reflecting on this past year. November 1 marked my sixth-month mark of working with Cardinal. I am thankful for the experience these past months of working with a great team that is laboring to bring prosperity to West Virginia. I’ve been able to see up close…

What are Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction? If you’re a typical American, you probably don’t use terms like “collateral” in your everyday life—I know I sure don’t. If you do run across the term, it’s most likely in one of two situations: collateral on a loan or collateral damage (like when you hear on the…

Is Work Good for Us? Work is ever-present in our lives. Regardless of if your relationship with work is good or bad, it is a significant feature of your day. For those of us who have traditional office jobs, it takes up about 8 hours or so of our day. For others, especially the self-employed,…

What are Unintended Consequences? A bit of a silly question, considering that the term is nearly self-defining. In short, unintended consequences are any unforeseen results, positive or negative, of deliberate action. We are all familiar with unintended consequences in our day-to-day lives. Struggling to retain information during a meeting at work because of a late…