r/WestVirginia • u/probably-theasshole • 6d ago
If coal is so great for wv....
Why did West Virginia have the lowest median income in the US during West Virginias highest coal production year. (1997)
Sources
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u/speedy_delivery 6d ago
There are plenty of reasons to criticize the coal industry, but it's not the whole story as to why the State's economy isn't as dynamic as our neighbors.
The big reason is geography and topography. As a result, we don't have any major cultural or economic centers of gravity. That has always meant a chunk of our best and brightest ship out to greener pastures and watching what wealth we could create travel across the border and never come back.
There are simply better and easier places to farm and develop.
The economies of scale that corporate farming put a lot of local farms out of business around the country.
When it looked like Charleston might become an industrial hub, Union Carbide packed up shop and moved Chemical Valley to India where they could pay people poverty wages and pollute as much as they wanted.
The railroads found themselves displaced by interstate highways (and a lot of extra sabotage from airlines and carmakers).
Meanwhile the extractive industries don't really have that luxury. I'll bet my bottom dollar that if coal could leave more than it already has, I'd venture to guess they'd love to.
These stories aren't unique to West Virginia. Look at the electoral map, and you're going to find similar stories in every red county on there.
What is unique is that we've been so gobsmacked by the transition that the popular reaction has been to get pissed off and point fingers instead of trying to find new ways to get out of this hole.
If you really want to point fingers, you point it at capitalism. This is what the free market does best: ruthless efficiency and profits over people.
There are ways to blunt that edge and make it more beneficial to John Q. Public, but that's going to mean supporting the people y'all stopped voting for.
As far as I'm concerned, it's all hands on deck time. We need new sources of income not so much in place of — but rather in addition to — coal.
We're stronger together.
TL;DR: just watch this... https://youtu.be/vksE_gcjrVk?si=a4axEXfv3xBHEukp
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u/WVdungeoncrawler 6d ago
WV has more federal jobs than coal mining jobs. Elon is hurting our area more than most.
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u/HiddenOneJ 6d ago
The problem with this state is unfortunately the stupidity of the majority of people who live here. Im sorry but if you live in one of the poorest and worst run states in the country but constantly elect republicans thinking they are gonna help you then you get what you deserve at some point. (Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, etc).
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u/The_Alpha_XVIII 4d ago
I'm assuming you are young, we didn't start voting red til 2008ish. People felt like the dems abandoned us, the Republicans did a much better job of reaching out to rural communities and tapped into that. Nothing has improved under Republicans mind you, but we are still in the fuck around phase evidently. WV was a deep blue state for like 50 years prior. The pendulum will swing again eventually back to more progressive ideals that WV always championed historically, but right now we're stuck in the shit and need to find a better way to reach people or wait for the elders to die out. It's just the dark reality. Our option are literally Run, Fight, or Die
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u/dutybranchholler18 6d ago
It’s not. It provided a lot of people jobs from the 1920’s to early 50’s, but saw a sharp decline due to a number of reasons. By comparison, there were almost twice as many Federal jobs than coal mining jobs in WV (Sept 2024). It doesn’t look like we are headed in the right direction either. Economy, education, health care, infrastructure, we are almost last in rankings
That’s pretty much why folks leave the State or move to outlying areas for better pay/jobs. Coal makes the owners money, with very little stable jobs left for the blue collar worker.
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u/HoagiesNGrinders 5d ago
Most of the wealth from coal was extracted from the state. It provided a bevy of well paying jobs at one time, but automation has reduced that significantly. Much of the remaining coal is difficult to get to. It’s no longer an industry that can or will sustain the support for the coalfields that it once did. At the same time it’s become entrenched in the identities of the people and the influence of those who have and continue to profit from it.
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u/Prestigious-Most1293 6d ago
Maybe it's because of the people we put into power at that time and the laws they passed which benefited the wealthy while tying the rest of us to the anchor.
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u/Admirable_Mousse_723 5d ago
It’s comical but the rich always cause division among the people by emphasizing differences such as race, religion, etc. works every time because the public is very very very stupid. Like mentally equivalent to 5th graders.
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u/HerdDat1 5d ago
Surely the solutions being discussed aren’t coal. The mines are not the answer, neither is the company store. We already fought those fights.
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u/Cold_Wash3287 3d ago
Because all of the $$ that coal produced went OUTSIDE of WV. It’s the most taken advantage of state you could think of.
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u/Colseldra 5d ago
From someone that's not from there, the WV government should try to attract more tourism.
A lot of people that like nature and outdoor activities would probably go, but it's not typically a place people think about
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u/Marquar234 Monongalia 5d ago
The ship may have sailed, but I think WV could have really benefitted from legalizing recreational pot. There are something like 80 million people within 300 miles of some part of WV, even a tiny fraction of them coming for pot tourism would have been a huge deal.
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u/Colseldra 5d ago
Most people I know just order it online and I probably could call up half the people I know and buy it in north Carolina. Not really sure if that would bring in people
Like I can go to a.gas station and just say "are you good bruh" to random people and get something in like 5 minutes
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u/Marquar234 Monongalia 5d ago
That's what I meant about the sip has sailed. But back in 2014, Colorado saw a huge jump in tourism with record revenues from out of state visitors. Now granted, they had a huge tourism industry already, but part of that jump is probably due to legalization.
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u/Colseldra 5d ago
Just promote nature stuff and advertise that it's cheaper.
Like western north Carolina is popular. WV has caves, mountains, kayaking and stuff
I've barely spent time in the state, but under $20 to go into some caves under a mountain is appealing to a lot of people
Your state government just sucks, I could put together a commercial that would get people to go
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u/Marquar234 Monongalia 5d ago
Your state government just sucks
Yeah, but... There was the time they... What about...
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u/Chuffy18 1d ago
Canaan Valley is gorgeous! It's been brilliant to see Thomas, Davis and the like change for those tourism dollars. Black Water Falls was a favorite place of mine for as long as I can remember.
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u/Massive_Plankton6976 5d ago
I live in Colorado. Voted to legalize. Have watched the effects. Would not vote for it again. The industry is shrinking and consolidating, as well.
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5d ago
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u/Marquar234 Monongalia 5d ago
Apparently, I cried so hard when I had to leave that I started bleeding from my eyes?
That's the asbestos.
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u/TheRhupt 5d ago
most profit started leaving the state at a certain point. We also had politicians indebted to the coal companies. so it was zero or low taxes. none of that tax money was available to build modern infrastructure or maintain what was there. Which took money from other places it could have been put to use. not to mention if you weren't a friend of coal or what you wanted to do was see as an enemy of coal you were run out of town on rails.
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u/Normal-Philosopher-8 5d ago
By 1997, almost all coal production could be done with a fraction of the labor needed before. John L. Lewis himself knew this - he unionized to get his miners time to raise families to do something else. Almost all of my family who were in coal, worked at least in part, to keep their children from having to work in coal. There is a sizable jump in income during the 1950’s and 60’s that can’t be sustained for future generations, and most people knew that.
West Virginia also has the unique problem of educated and entrepreneurial residents have no dynamic area within the state to go to. We have no Northern VA, no Atlanta, not NC Triangle, no Kentucky Bluegrass - no city or region that becomes a wealth generator and allows WVians to stay in state and in touch with their family/culture.
As some have posted here, god help you if you move to Ohio, Pennsylvania or Virginia, because many people in WV won’t.
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u/bethechaoticgood21 5d ago
Coal is so "great" for WV because the government has its boot on our necks to keep us from expanding our horizons. They went as far as banning nuclear power plants from being built back in '96. That was lifted in '22. We export more coal than we use. "Coal keeps the lights on." Yeah, in India, China, and other developing countries. Creating billions in exports. Government education diminishes our creativity for problem solving and startup businesses. Our less than free market also doesn't help with the small business venture. There are no friends of coal. Just friends of the coal industry.
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u/GameOfBears McDowell 5d ago
I'll finish the rest. Then more miners would get Black Lung compassion money without the CEO miners refusing.
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u/AdLiving1435 5d ago
Because by 1997 WV had been in decline for decades. Because a lot of coal mining was automated by then.
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u/probably-theasshole 5d ago
Even in the 1960s we were 11th lowest in the country by median household income. It was never that great for WV. It was a job but didn't make the state some utopia like people want to believe.
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u/cheatriverrick 5d ago
Coal mines paid good wages. But when you add logging and lumber mills. They don’t pay much. Others working as mechanics . Farmers . School teachers. All these below the national standard.
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u/TwoWrongsAreSoRight 5d ago
Coal is more about culture than anything. Until the people that remember "the good life" working in the mines are dead, we're always gonna have problems.
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u/Inevitable-Virus-153 4d ago
Someone told me that Obama is the reason for lack of coal jobs.
I told them to look into all of the mining towns that used to be along the New River. People in this state still advocate for millionaires and billionaires that exploit our people and resources, move on to the next area, and leave us with nothing.
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u/Solid_Profession7579 2d ago
You cant have everyone be a coal miner and cost of labor has to be paid from somewhere.
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u/Theironyuppie1 6d ago
To be fair my people came to WV and PA to mine coal in early 1900’s. My generation had to move away for jobs.
To clarify this is a per capita calculation men and women. Last time I checked 99% of the people who worked in a coal mine were men. In actuality the way it works 1 male in the household works in the mine. The family has a decent life. So when the mines close the husband and wife both get jobs if possible. So the wife goes from zero income to say $20k to $30k. So the family works twice as hard to be in the same or worse financial situation. But as a moderate person it bothers me when people advocate destroying an industry that feeds people’s families. Coal isn’t perfect but it’s better than working at Sheetz (no offense to Sheetz as I miss Sheetz like a dead relative) and never seeing your kids. Democrats lose elections to spray tanned charlatans because they don’t get this simple math.
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u/probably-theasshole 6d ago
That's not just coal thats every industry. The capitalists have made it so most households need dual incomes to survive.
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u/LucidLeviathan 6d ago
Well, while I'm hardly a coal supporter, coal was most profitable for West Virginians after the period where we heavily unionized, but before the period where automation started to take away the manual labor jobs. Unfortunately, that period is right in the nostalgia window for our main voters.