Category: Labor and Workforce
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IG of the Day: Federal Contract Jobs
More than one in ten Virginians working in the Commonwealth is a private sector employee working under federal contract, according to data published by the Mercatus Center. That’s the highest percentage of any state in the country… by far. The comparable figure for Maryland is only 7.7%. Add government jobs to federally funded private jobs,…
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Uneven Jobs Performance for Virginia Metros
Whatever the cause of Virginia’s sputtering job-creation performance, the problem can’t be blamed entirely upon sequestration. Bureau of Labor Statistics data accessible on Governing magazine’s website displays job growth between July 2012 and July 2013: The Washington metro area, the perennial leader in job creation, did fall to the middle of the pack — 164th strongest growth…
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Why McAuliffe Is Saying No to Uranium Mining
By Peter Galuszka Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe has made one of his first pronouncements and it is an important one: he will veto any law the General Assembly passes to lift the decades-long ban on mining uranium in Virginia. The bigger question is whether he was start disassembling the energy-industrial complex that outgoing Gov. Robert F.…
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An Electrifying Plan for Shockoe Bottom
by James A. Bacon Mayor Dwight C. Jones unveiled this morning a $200 million public-private project to build a new baseball stadium and spark revitalization of a neglected corner of Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom district. The project includes 750 apartments, a Kroger grocery store, a 200-room Hyatt Hotel, a parking deck and a slavery memorial. The…
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How Will McAuliffe Govern?
by James A. Bacon Terry McAuliffe, the governor-elect of Virginia, has a tough job ahead of him. Democrats picked up only one seat in the House of Delegates, leaving Republicans with 66 seats, or a veto-proof majority. Most likely, he will have to work with a Republican, Mark Obenshain, in the attorney general’s office. He…
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Sunday Morning Coming Down
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Planning, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka With apologies to Kris Kristofferson, this Sunday morning presents a grab bag of interesting morning newspaper stories and positions. To wit: GiftGate Update, Getting the Stories Straight: According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, Star Scientific boss Jonnie R. Williams Sr. told federal prosecutors he insisted on meeting personally with his then-buddy Gov.…
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The Ironies of Tom Clancy
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka The timing is extremely odd, but the death of techno-thriller author Tom Clancy came this week just when federal workers were being furloughed by the hundreds of thousands through Capitol Hill gridlock. Clancy, who died in Baltimore at 66, did much in the 1980s to makes heroes of the men and women…
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Virginia’s Medicaid Travesty
By Peter Galuszka Some things never seem to change in the South and in Virginia, namely the idea among conservatives that the poor, notably African-Americans, are not worthy of help. Such is the predicament faced Virginia and other states that have not expanded the federal Medicaid program to help the poor with health insurance just…
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So Much to Blog About, So Little Time…
Here are some great stories today that I just won’t have time to do justice to: UVa Board of Visitors lead the way in state political giving The Daily Progress Highlight: Current board members at Virginia’s 10 largest public, four-year institutions have shelled out about $9.5 million in state political contributions over the last 20…
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Facts, Reality and the “War On Coal”
By Peter Galuszka Now that the Obama Administration is finally getting ready to set long-overdue regulations on limiting carbon dioxide at new coal-fired electricity plants, Big Coal and its allies are again beating the “War On Coal” drums. The rules, which will apply only to new coal-fired plants, will shut down the industry, kill jobs,…
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The Cooch and the Pope
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Federal issues, Gun rights, Immigration, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time,” says Pope Francis, leader of the globe’s Roman Catholics, regarding abortion, gays and contraception. One wonders if Ken Cuccinelli gets the message. Or maybe even Bob McDonnell. The attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate and the sitting governor have worn…
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Charlottesville’s Surprising Start-up Strength
By Peter Galuszka It may be a throwback to the glam years of the 1990s, but there’s always been an aura about bright minds getting ideas and having the fortitude and guts to push them to fruition without the warm womb of a big corporation or university to keep them nice and safe. Finally, after…
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Good News on Virginia’s Offshore Wind Power
By Peter Galuszka News that Dominion Virginia Power has won an auction to lease about 113,000 acres about 27 miles off Virginia Beach for an offshore wind turbine farm is welcome, but don’t expect anything to happen right away. Dominion won the rights to develop the shallow waters from the Interior Department for $1.6 million.…
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Middle Class Flees New York. Who Needs ‘Em?
by James A. Bacon For decades pundits (including myself) have been predicting the eventual demise of New York City, yet the city continues to defy the prognostications. With its world-class financial, entertainment and advertising sectors and its burgeoning entrepreneurial tech sector, the Big Apple has demonstrated such a capacity for reinventing itself that it remains…
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Working Still Beats Welfare in Virginia
Despite the highly controversial reform of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program in 1996, welfare benefits actually have increased in generosity over the past 17 years. Social-services benefits for the poor pay more than minimum-wage jobs in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states they…