November 28, 2016
The NYT had an interesting piece on the hopes that West Virginians placed on the ability of Donald Trump to bring back jobs to the state. However, a comment on the loss of mining jobs under President Obama may have misled readers.
The piece noted:
“Coal has always been boom and bust; its decline began long before Mr. Obama took office. But in West Virginia alone, 12,000 coal industry jobs have been lost during his tenure.”
While this is true, the start of the Obama administration was a temporary peak for the coal industry, as the sharp run-up in oil prices in the prior four years had substantially increased the demand for coal as shown in the figure below.
Coal Mining Jobs in West Virginia
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While there was a substantial loss of coal mining jobs during the Obama years, mostly due to the availability of low cost natural gas, the most recent employment levels are almost the same as they were in 2000.
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