As West Virginia lawmakers kick off this year’s legislative session with talk of kitchen table issues and “Jobs First — Opportunity Everywhere,” a recent report by WalletHub suggests they will have to do a lot of work to turn that focus into success. If the aim is to turn the Mountain State into the kind of place where people want to stay to raise their families, they’ll be working from (as usual) nearly the back of the pack.

In WalletHub’s “Best and Worst States to Raise a Family 2026,” West Virginia ranked nearly last. Only New Mexico prevented it from being the absolute worst. But what were the indicators that can help lawmakers figure out what to tackle?

West Virginia was 50th for family fun, 18th for health and safety, 45th for education and child care, 44th for affordability and 38th for socio-economics.

Mountain State residents might wonder whether part of the problem on that first ranking isn’t just that our idea of “family fun” does not quite match up with those who have never run around in the woods until they heard the correct whistle from the direction of their front porch. Still, there are more concrete factors to consider.

West Virginia is 48th for median family income, 48th for the number of families with young children and 47th for the percentage of families living in poverty.

“Raising a family has become significantly more expensive in recent years as the cost of living has risen quickly,” said WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo. “In fact, it can cost a family as much as $320,000 to raise a child to age 18, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In light of the expensive nature of being a parent and the responsibility it entails, it’s important to live in a city that is affordable while still providing quality health care, education, safety and opportunities for enrichment.”

Financial wellbeing and stability; economic hope; the knowledge that children will receive a good education and have access to affordable, quality healthcare; AND the knowledge that children will be free to grow up in West Virginia without the state telling them who they must be and what they must believe — those are the factors that create an environment in which parents want to raise their kids.

And those are the kitchen table, jobs first issues that will indeed help provide opportunity everywhere. The rest of the socio-cultural garbage a few outliers like to bring up each session to score a few dirty political points must not be allowed to become a distraction.

Our children and all West Virginia families deserve better.