Impacts of the ReImagine Appalachia and Clean Energy Transition for West Virginia: Job Creation, Economic Recovery, and Long-Term Sustainability-Summary

The ReImagine Appalachia Blueprint applied to West Virginia with federal resources can support high quality jobs in sustainable manufacturing, a modern Civilian Conservation Corps and by building out the region’s broadband infrastructure. A federal investment package with annual average allocations of $1.6 billion to West Virginia, from 2021 to 2030, along with an additional $3.6 billion in private investments, would generate approximately 41,100 jobs in West Virginia—enough to bring West Virginia’s high unemployment rate down to 3% (Robert Pollin, Jeannette Wicks-Lim, Shouvik Chakraborty, and Gregor Semieniuk. Impacts of the ReImagine Appalachia and Clean Energy Transition Programs for West Virginia: Job Creation, Economic Recovery and Long-Term Sustainability. Department of Economics and Political Economy Research, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. February 2021.  https://reimagineappalachia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Pollin-et-al-WV-Reimagine-Appalachia-Clean-Energy-Study-2-23-21.pdf ). These federal investments would not only represent a counterforce to the economic collapse associated with COVID-19 they would also build the foundation for a more sustainable and vibrant West Virginia going forward. The proposed programs build local wealth, repair damaged lands and re-invest in communities through modernizing the infrastructure for electricity, communications, and transportation systems. The average household would also spend 30–40% less on energy.