A large swath of working-age Appalachians aren鈥檛 in the labor force.
The region鈥檚 labor force participation rate, or the percentage of the population active in the workforce, lags behind the national average. Researchers from the Ohio River Valley Institute argue that鈥檚 what鈥檚 behind and in the region.
They believe a federal work program targeted toward hiring people in Appalachia could help.
鈥淭he Appalachian region has long struggled with having enough good paying jobs,鈥� said Ted Boettner, one of the authors of the . 鈥淎nd one of the results has been this long term structural unemployment problem that has persisted for decades.鈥�
Coal-country woes
The lack of strong workforce participation is far from incidental, Boettner said. It鈥檚 been a well-documented problem since the 1960s, when the Appalachian Regional Commission reported it suffered from a
Fossil fuel extraction, like coal mining, left the region鈥檚 economy undiversified, according to Boettner. And when those industries began to , it left the area without the necessary economic opportunities to sustain the population.
鈥淭here just weren't enough jobs to connect people to,鈥� Boettner said. 鈥淎nd this has been bound up in other things as well, like the opioid crisis lately.鈥�
The result is an untapped workforce, Boettner said. He estimates more than 150,000 people in Central Appalachia are working age, between 25-54, but aren鈥檛 working or looking for jobs.
Federal help
Boettner says there isn鈥檛 a silver bullet for the employment issues but that a subsidized federal work program would help.
Boettner said the most important aspect would be job training or apprenticeship programs that help people develop skills.
鈥淭hose things can have a dramatic effect in getting them connected to the workforce, staying in the workforce, and being able to have a sense of identity,鈥� he said.
The likelihood of the region getting this sort of program is unclear. Subsidized employment programs haven't seen much movement on a national scale. In and , Democratic lawmakers introduced programs, but didn鈥檛 get much traction.
The most recent widespread example is from 2008. Nearly 40 states to launch a jobs program in the wake of the Great Recession.
Climate infrastructure
Boettner said the region doesn鈥檛 have to wait around and hope for the passage of a federal employment program . Rather, he said, targeted hiring could be happening now on federal clean energy projects.
The Inflation Reduction Act鈥檚 renewable energy tax incentives have created around 170,000 jobs in its first year, according to the Boettner said the projects should use community benefit agreements that require employers to hire locally and provide job training in order to get funding for the project.
Boettner said it鈥檚 a win-win: employers still get lots of funding, while the people in the community gain the skills they need to reconnect to the workforce.
鈥淲e're not going to launch a national subsidized employment program anytime soon,鈥� Boettner said. 鈥淪o we want to take advantage of what's right in front of us as well.鈥�