Many Virginians still think of Virginia’s six coalfield counties in far Southwest Virginia as a bastion of unemployment and poverty in an otherwise robust state economy. The stereotype was true as recently as 10 years ago, but it no longer applies. As Rex Bowman writes for the Times-Dispatch, unemployment levels have reached lows not seen in decades — since the coal boom of the 1970s — and welfare roles are down dramatically. The key: Former Gov. George Allen’s welfare reform and well-funded regional economic development programs.
A rebound in the coal economy has helped the economy somewhat, but the main credit for job creation goes to sustained efforts to diversify the region’s industry base. Unemployment in Dickenson County, which stood at 14.2 percent in 1997, has fallen to 5.2 percent. The changes have been almost as dramatic in Wise and Buchanan Counties, the other two jurisdictions where coal mining once constituted an economic monoculture.
Said Gary Hale, manager of the Virginia Employment Commission in Norton: “I’ve got more jobs available than I’ve got people to fill them, and I never thought I’d say that.”
While job creation has been critical, so have sustained efforts to break the culture of welfare dependency. Bowman describes the strategems to ease the difficult transition from welfare to work. For the coalfield region, the number of people on welfare has declined from 6,o61 a decade ago to 3,614 today — a decline of 48 percent, compared to 43 percent for the state as a whole.
Statewide, the decline in welfare roles is saving the federal and state governments $957 million a year. But the benefit of reviving peoples’ independence and pride is incalculable. Kudos to the Times-Dispatch for highlighting this success story.