The late (1921-2004), great U.S. comedian Rodney Dangerfield had a stock catchphrase, “I don’t get no respect.” The same appears to be true of West Virginia. The latest evidence is a March 1 article in the Wall Street Journal, with the headline “Left Behind in Nationwide Jobs Recovery: Charleston, W.Va.” and a subhead, “Thanks to its dependence on coal, the state lacks the educated workforce and thriving cities to prosper in today’s economy.”
Sounds good, but is misleading. It’s facile and shallow reporting, largely devoid of attribution, depth, or nuance. It relies on sympathetic anecdotes, and is filled with errors of omission and commission. It’s a patronizing piece, a classic quick in-and-out from New York that seems to reek of “let’s look at the poor hillbillies in West Virginia and be glad we are superior.”
Here are some of the article’s errors. It says that “Charleston lags behind metros in other energy-rich states like Texas, including Austin and Midland, in job creation. Those cities are flourishing amid a fracking boom in states with oil and natural-gas reserves, while Charleston is suffering from West Virginia’s dependence on increasingly out-of-favor coal.”
Not so. West Virginia is in the heart of fracking country, home of substantial portions of the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations. Many former coal miners in the state now have jobs in the gas industry.
Nor is the state’s coal industry in complete retreat. While steam coal production, serving electric utility customers, is in decline, metallurgical coal, used in steel manufacturing, is booming. Murray Energy, privately owned by Donald Trump buddy Bob Murray, is doing well. Met coal export prices, set by international markets, according to the U.S. Department of Energy ranged from $150/ton to $138/ton during the first three quarters of 2018.
Murray Energy is not publicly traded, so its profits are unknown beyond its owners and investors. But industry observers are confident that the company is making comfortable profits. Murray has been pushing the Trump administration for policies that would rescue his domestic steam coal business from competitive pressures from natural gas in U.S. wholesale markets, boosting company profits.
The article’s figures on unemployment in the state, and in Charleston, are unpersuasive. The WSJ article asserted that West Virginia unemployment was 5.1% in December, “low by historical standards,” but high compared to nationwide figures of 3.9%. That’s meaningless, as is the statement that “West Virginia’s working-age population dropped by 8.2%” from 2010 to 2017. That’s when the Baby Boomers were exiting the workforce.
It’s worth noting that West Virginia has far more government workers than coal miners. In 2017, the state’s coal mining employment totaled about 13,000, with 10,000 in underground mines. Federal government employees in the Mountaineer State in February 2019 totaled more than 23,000, state government employees were at over 48,000, and local government employees hit 84,000. Charleston is the state capital, and employs a lot of government workers, as well as contractors, lobbyists, and assorted hangers on.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Charleston is hardly tied tightly to the state’s dicey coal economy, as important as that has been historically (and remains romantically). Charleston’s economy has long been hitched to the chemical industry, housing a large number of elderly chemical plants that have closed or seen their operations curtailed, as new, more efficient facilities elsewhere have come on line.
Situated on the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers, Charleston has long been known colloquially as “Chemical Valley.” As a 2014 New Yorker article noted, “Today, the Chemical Valley Roller Girls compete in Roller Derby events with a logo of a woman in fishnet stockings and a gas mask.”
The natural gas boom has helped the city of 50,000 and surrounding region of some 200,000. Gas is a major feedstock for the chemical industry. The presence of the state government has also provided many stable, well-paying jobs, with a state government that shows many of the same symptoms of instability and incivility as the federal government.
Charleston is not an economic basket case, nor is West Virginia, although both have problems. But both are worthy of respect.
— Kennedy Maize