NPR Reporter Talks Findings From Ascend W.Va. Story

A recent national story identified West Virginia’s Ascend program as being highly successful, even though the numbers are relatively small. News Director Eric Douglas caught up with NPR reporter Scott Neuman to discuss the program in relation to other similar efforts and what he discovered.  

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.  

Douglas: What did you go in expecting? Or what did you learn from it? 

Neuman: I guess I was probably like a lot of people who don’t live in West Virginia thinking that, what are the possibilities for a state like West Virginia to attract remote workers? 

Obviously there’s a lot to offer in terms of outdoor activities and the scenery and the kind of lopsided, frankly, advantage in cost of living if you’re coming from a place like DC or Chicago or something. But it’s hard to imagine that people will actually pull up stakes and move clear across the country. 

In some cases, in a couple of cases from people I talked to who had actually never even been to West Virginia and they applied for this program and were accepted, and they made the move and they found something that they like. 

Douglas: Yeah, the one had never been here, bought a house sight unseen and just showed up. That’s kind of stunning. But did you find anybody who pushed back against it or said, no, I came here, but as soon as my two years is up, I’m out? 

Neuman: Actually, I didn’t. Those people must exist because the retention rate after two years is only 96%. I didn’t find anybody from that 4%, so I’m sure there are people for whom it didn’t work out. But mostly it seems like it has worked out. 

Like the main woman I spoke to, Ashley Eklin in the story, I said, “Is this for you? Are you staying for good?” And she said, “Well, no, I don’t know. Maybe. I want to do some more exploring. But for now I bought a house. I’m committed for a while.” So that’s typically a few years at least. And she’s perfectly happy with where she’s at. 

I went into the story thinking all of the, and the headline kind of suggests this, I admit, but it’s a way to grab attention, but that all of these programs were, you know, an invention of COVID-19 and that’s not really true. 

Ascend West Virginia was actually, they started thinking about it in 2019, which as we know was before the pandemic started. And Tulsa Remote is a model for programs like Ascend West Virginia and that actually began in 2018. 

It was surprising to me because I was trying to remember, like, is there something that was telegraphing remote work before the pandemic? And one of the people I talked to who’s in a position to know, I think it was the professor from University of Maryland, but she said, “Well, you know, there were 35 million people working remotely before the pandemic,” which actually is a number I didn’t know. Remote work was already trending before the pandemic. 

Douglas: The big question, has it convinced you? Are you moving to West Virginia? 

Neuman: I have to admit, I’ve been on a list of West Virginia property for about 10 years now. I’ve been thinking about it off and on, but probably not, but it’s still an intriguing idea. I’m not even sure I would be allowed to work that remotely anyway, but if I could, it might be in the cards. 

I mean, one of the reasons why I became familiar with this story is because I go to West Virginia three or four times a year because I go up to Spruce Knob to do astronomy there. 

I wouldn’t say I know the state real well, but I’ve definitely driven through it different seasons and I understand the attraction. 

Douglas: Do you remember how many (programs) there are? Where does West Virginia’s program kind of rank? 

Neuman: There are about 70 and a lot of them are very local, you know, like an individual city like Noblesville, Indiana. I’m from Indiana. So Noblesville, Indiana has a program, for example. There are a lot like that. 

And the cash incentives for those are typically quite a bit smaller than they would be for Ascend West Virginia or Tulsa Remote. 

In terms of retention, as far as I can tell, West Virginia probably is perhaps the most successful, certainly in the top tier. More successful than even Tulsa Remote. 

I think that retention rate is probably really key. You’ve got a few hundred people, but if they’re staying, and they continue to put their spending power and their tax dollars into the state and they stay there long term, over time they can make a real difference. 

Douglas: And just $12,000 plus free kayak rentals and that kind of thing. I mean, which is cool, but it’s not super costly. I think it was a $20,000 was the estimated package. 

Neuman: People said the cash incentive was an enticement, but other people I talked to said I’m not gonna move clear across the country for that amount of money. But it creates a headline. That cash incentive does create some visibility that gets people to consider a place they might not have considered otherwise. 

Douglas: Is there anything we haven’t talked about? 

Neuman: One of the things I didn’t get into in the story very much is that we are talking about a relatively small number of people. Is 700 people enough to make a real difference? Yes and no. 

There’s a flywheel effect, they call it, where you’re potentially attracting family and not just immediate family. Parents decided to move to West Virginia after they did, or there’s some other relations that aren’t in their immediate family. 

The kids obviously are going to come with a couple, but you’re potentially creating future West Virginians who are going to stay there in the long term. 

So the numbers are relatively small, but the other thing is just the economic impact is kind of surprisingly large, even for that number of people. 

I mean, you’re talking right now, organizers say about three quarters of a billion dollars to the state. 

I mean, that’s not entirely trivial, right? And they’re already planning for another thousand. 

Tulsa Remote, another program in the same vein, has brought on more than 4,000 people; I think 4,500 people and they’re still going strong. 

A few programs around the country have wound down because they just basically ran out of funding. There’s a program in Vermont that was kind of shut down. But even that’s the interesting thing is that even though they had to shut down, they still consider what they did accomplish a big success.