W. Va. cashfor-worker program picks more to relocate

A program offering $20,000 in cash and incentives for remote workers to move to West Virginia as part of a population push has chosen 33 people for its second class of newcomers and is now taking applications for a third host region, officials announced Tuesday.

Tourism officials said the public-private program received more than 3,600 applications for the latest round in the Greenbrier Valley, about the same number as there are residents in the laid-back southeastern community of Lewisburg.

The applicants recently selected for the Greenbrier Valley are from 19 U.S. states, including as far away as California. The average annual income of those

selected is about $125,000. The applicants will be bringing family members for a total of 61 new residents.

Last year, the first round of the Ascend West Virginia remote worker program welcomed 53 new residents from as far away as Germany to the northern college town of Morgantown.

As part of Tuesday’s announcement, officials said they are opening up new applications for the Eastern Panhandle, along with additional openings for Morgantown and the Greenbrier Valley.

Despite the state’s long-term population doldrums, the Eastern Panhandle is the fastest-growing region of West Virginia and is a cheaper living alternative for people who work a little more than an hour away in Washington, D.C. The Eastern Panhandle includes small towns such as Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg and Shepherdstown.

The 2020 census found West Virginia lost a greater percentage of its residents than any other state in the past decade, and is now the only state with fewer residents than it had in

1950. Residents left as jobs in the coal, steel and other industries were eliminated. The nation’s second-largest coal producer, West Virginia has lost 56% of its coal mining jobs since 2009 as power plants turn toward renewable energy sources.