[Old School]

You made a great point, a lot of other areas do benefit from mining, but it's at our expense. Do you really think people in tampa know what TECO does, some do, but most dont. A lot of the coal money that people around here work so hard for goes to other states and makes other men/women rich. It's just ironic that so much money is created out of this area, but as the list CIG107 provided shows, it doenst stay here.

Coach, I have to disagree with you on this one, I know there is some money going out of state, but I don't think it's a lot. In 2004 coal miners earned $759 million in wages, and about 80% of that was in the Eastern Ky. coal fields, that calculates to about $400 million dollars after taxes. Consider that for every coal miners job (in 2004 15,012 and 13,272 of those were in E Ky.) there's another 4 jobs are created (approx. 46,000 jobs) related to the coal industry, such as in coal transportation, contractors, engineering/surveying/mapping, mechanics, welders, lawers, loggers, electrical etc. the majority of these companies are locally owned and employee local people. I don't know the how much money was brought in through their wages but the thing is the money stayed here in E. Ky.

I may make some people mad, but here it goes, one big reason E. Ky is so poor is that too many people are on disability, welfare, food stamps or other goverment aid that shouldn't be, now if a person deserves it then I'm ok with it thats what it's there for. I have several reltavies that grew up on welfare and now they are raising their families and their in better shape than I am, my point is as long as these people (the lazy ones that don't want to work) are drawing a check E. Ky will be one of the poorest in the nation.

I know that Kentucky had 16 of the 100 poorest counties in the nation, but as you know coal mining is about the only source of employment in E. Ky that pays a decent wage, what would the per capita income be without the coal mines. I for one would love to see other industries move into E. Ky but better roads and larger airports need to be built before that ever happens.