A loss of jobs in the coal industry is not a recent development. Employment in this sector has been declining steadily for the past 30 years.National Journal

This article is from the archive of our partner National Journal



The president's regulatory push has left him and his party deeply unpopular across the region: Bill Clinton won Kentucky and West Virginia in both of his presidential elections; Obama lost both states, twice, in landslides.

But for all the rage over Obama's environmental agenda, mining jobs began disappearing in the region long before he entered the White House, for reasons that have nothing to do with regulations now coming out of Washington.



In the following four years under the first President Bush, coal jobs in the two states fell to 56,000. And by the final year of the Clinton administration, the states' combined total of mining jobs had fallen to a nadir of 33,000.

By comparison, West Virginia and Kentucky coal-mining payrolls have been relatively stable during Obama's first four years in office: In 2009, there were just under 43,000 coal miners in the two states combined. In 2012, the latest year for which MSHA has final data, the count totaled just over 41,000.

So what's driving the decline? First and foremost: changes in the industry.

Despite mining employment being cut nearly in half since 1983, the two states' combined coal output has basically held steady, dropping from 245 million short tons in 1983 to 240 million short tons in 2011.

Advances in mining technology have made miners more efficient.



For the miners and other industry employees who still hold jobs, the increased productivity has paid off. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nominal average annual coal industry employee wages in West Virginia sat at $54,000. By 2012, the average employee was taking home nearly $85,000.



But as industry officials argue they could experience another such revival, they face a new hurdle that had not yet fully taken off in the early 2000s. Today, they face stiffer competition from natural gas, which is both more abundant and less expensive due to the fracking boom.

This article is from the archive of our partner National Journal.
