Virginia may have emerged from the recession, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of the woods yet. New numbers from the federal government show paychecks are still lagging behind.
Hourly wage growth in Virginia is so sluggish that the Commonwealth ranked near the bottom of states, according to new numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From July 2016 to July 2017, the average hourly earnings in Virginia rose only 1. 7 percent. Michael Farren at George Mason University says one explanation is the old urban-rural split, but maybe the opposite of what you might expect. Growth is rural areas is far outpacing growth in urban areas.
“It may be that employment and the labor force is more constrained in more rural areas compared to more urban areas and so those places might see their wages increase before urban areas do.”
Northern Virginia is actually dragging the state average down while Staunton and Harrisonburg are seeing the largest growth in hourly wages. Still areas like Roanoke and Charlottesville are falling behind the national average.
“We’re not producing jobs at a fast enough rate, and we’re not producing jobs at the wages that we were before the recession," says John Provo at Virginia Tech. “This has really been something that the state has recognized as a major challenge and was really the impetus behind creating a program called Go Virginia.”
Provo worked on that Go Virginia initiative, which was approved by the General Assembly in 2016. It’s charged with identifying local projects to enhance private-sector growth and job opportunities.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
