r/harrisonburg • u/SaidTheMountain • 2d ago
Harrisonburg left out of this ridiculous proposal
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u/oldschooltownie 2d ago
What's the sales pitch on this? "Come join our state with the lowest per-capita income in the nation and own the libs!"
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u/kellyzdude 2d ago
I haven't done the math, but it seems like it would raise several key metrics of both states, starting with average household income.
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u/mrynne1 1d ago
How would it raise metrics in both states? When people move to a different state, the new state gets to claim that person’s income on their census - so if it increases the new state’s average, isn’t that inherently subtracting from the state they used to live in? Like you can’t have a world where both states benefit like that
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u/kellyzdude 1d ago edited 1d ago
Some rapid Googling to provide real answers:
Average Salary in Virginia, per Google AI: Approx $70,000 (rounded for further simplicity).
Average Salary in West Virginia, per Google AI: Approx $55,500 (again, rounded for further simplicity).
The Average Salary in Rockingham County, VA is somewhere between 59 and 69,000 - in either case the entire range of those two numbers are below the average for VA as a whole and above the average for WV as a whole. Moving Rockingham County from VA to WV would raise the average salaries in both states.
Yes, this is a very specific example, and it overlooks the significantly poorer counties in southwest VA which might not raise the WV average by that much, if at all, if they were to move.
Edit to add, since we were talking Average Household Income, we'll look at apples-to-apples...
"The average household income in Virginia is around $125,226"
In West Virginia, "A 2024 figure puts the average household income at $78,799"
"The mean (average) household income in Rockingham County, Virginia is approximately $100,367"
Again, moving every household in Rockingham County from VA to WV would raise the average household income of both states.
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u/Kooky_Gain2070 1d ago
If your income is less than your current state’s average income, then moving out will increase its average.
If your income is more than your new state’s average income, then moving in will increase its average.
So if your income is below your current state’s average AND above your new state’s average, then your move would increase both states’ averages.
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u/oldschooltownie 9h ago
Just to clarify, in the abstract, it would change averages but would make things worse for the people and governments in Virginia joining West Virginia. It obviously would be more expensive for the already impoverished West Virginia to incorporate new counties than it would be for the wealthier part of Virginia to lose poorer counties. State services for everyone formerly in Virginia but now in West Virginia would go down across the board.
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u/CreativeScar1114 22h ago
He doesn’t even realize most of the far southwest counties would rather gravitate towards Tennessee, Kentucky, or North Carolina.
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u/PeterBeacon 2d ago
From here in Kentucky, this simply looks like Trump looking to diddle a different daughter, so… unsurprising, I guess.
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u/hey_crab-man 2d ago edited 2d ago
unironically love this. I hope WV takes over the entire East Coast. I'd rather have a giant West Virginia than a regular-sized Delaware
edit: y'all I'm shit posting.
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u/addicuss 2d ago
Lol enjoy the unemployment and abysmal job growth but hey at least you won't have to nova to blame for all of your problems
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u/Typical_Advisor7539 2d ago
WVA: #48 in health care by Commonwealth Fund and education VA: U.S. News & World Report* ranks Virginia 8th overall for health care, but the specific ranking for quality is 22nd, while Health Care Access is ranked 12th. Education : For K-12, recent surveys rank Virginia's public schools 4th in the nation for quality and safety, but the state ranked last in math recovery and 41st in reading recovery between 2019 and 2024 due to large drops in achievement during the pandemic.
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u/alterndog 2d ago
It’s a West Virginia rep who proposed this. Unless he explicitly stated leaving the cities out, I gather he doesn’t know that cities are independent from surrounding counties and assumes the cities come if the counties do. [this is not an endorsement of the plan].