That question is actually surprisingly easy to answer: They did. After all, 80 percent of McDowell’s population, including my grandparents, cleared out of the county to seek opportunities elsewhere during the last half-century.
But as the mines mechanized and closed down, why didn’t the rest go, too? Reed, Whitt, and Slagle all more or less agree that many folks in McDowell are being bribed by government handouts to stay put and to stay poor. Drug use is the result of the demoralization that follows.
In a Fall 2014 National Affairs article called “Moving to Work,” R Street Institute analysts Eli Lehrer and Lori Sanders asked, “What is keeping the poor from moving their families to new places to take advantage of better opportunities?” They argue that “the answer lies primarily in the structure of poverty-relief programs.” In other words, the government is paying people to be poor.
Yes.
I am the resident board expert on Mac-Dowell County(spelled for local pronunciation.) I am going to claim this title over Mr. Hickam as I am likely more current on events there.
Most did leave, the county is chocked-full of abandoned structures, including houses that would have been worth a lot of money just a couple of decades ago.
The ones that stay are mostly retired or are people on government assistance. Working people tend to follow the jobs. A lot have moved to North Carolina.
The war on Coal and the success of fracking Natural Gas has shut down about half of the mines over the past several years. The local economy is about as bad as it gets in this nation.
I frequently travel through there for work. There are still a few hardy souls hanging on and some of the most decent, down to Earth people you will ever meet living there.
Not sure what Homer has to do with it. The piece was by Ron Bailey, at Reason.
No, I am just saying that I think he reads this board from time to time.
And yes, I read the article after I made my initial post. Mr. Bailey is essentially publically saying what I have observed over the past several years since I have been working in the area. Almost word for word in fact, he really nailed it. And the remark about government assistance subsidizing poverty is dead on the money. I have seen it too many times both there and in surrounding counties.
There are more places like this than one might expect.
Troy, NY and Hoquiam, WA come to mind as two ‘Ghost Cities’. (See: Erie Canal and WA Logging killed by Spotted Owl)
Troy still has RPI to leech off of, but they’re places with “City Problems” with insufficient local industry or populace to tax. So some small number putt along at the bare essential jobs and the rest….
And if anyone wants to talk ‘White Privilege’, please oh please send them to McDowell County! I’ll get that nonsense out of them lickety-split!
Maybe if there was public assistance provided to people to allow them to move, they would move. If we can’t get rid of public assistance, how can it be changed to function more effectively? Or are there charities that help people move?