Generally, when West Virginia gets mentioned in a national news outlet, we grit our teeth and wait to see how negative the portrayal is. Then we shake our heads at how, once again, we’re not understood by the elites.
Many West Virginians probably feel that way about Paul Krugman’s opinion column in the New York Times entitled, “The Political Rage of Left-Behind Regions”, Sept 3, 2024. Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist, so agree or not, his opinions regarding the economy are worth considering.
He begins with recent local elections in Germany, in which a right-wing party, Alliance for Germany (AfD) did better than any right wing party in Germany since WWII, especially in Thuringia, a German state, which Krugman says resembles West Virginia economically. Politics are similar in that most voters support Donald Trump’s MAGA right wing politics. Krugman focuses his analysis on West Virginia, because it “epitomizes both the economic and political problems of left-behind regions.”
The stand out economic statistic Krugman highlights is the percentage of men not working. Lack of employment is also high for women, but jobs, Krugman contends, are for men a source of dignity; lacking a job when they feel they should be working can make them feel shame, which can then turn into “anger, a desire to blame someone else and lash out.”
Krugman, comparing WV to New Jersey, points out that a Trump/Vance talking point that immigrants are taking jobs from white men is not true. In West Virginia, the immigrant population is under 2% while in NJ it is almost 25% and lack of jobs among white men is far higher in WV than in NJ.
How does Krugman describe the causes? Simply put, the majority of good jobs are in high tech industries “that flourish in metropolitan areas with highly educated work forces.” Young people from WV and around the country who are qualified often leave here for those jobs or to work the service and construction jobs available in those places.
What about those left behind who can’t find work here? The social safety net, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, SNAP (food stamps) and other federal programs bring far more money into the state than is going out in federal taxes. These programs actually create some jobs. In addition to the federal government providing money for people to spend on food and services, “West Virginia may think of itself as a coal-mining state, but by the numbers it has long been more accurately described as a health care state, with much of its employment ultimately driven by those federal dollars.”
Trump and Republican claims that they support working people are belied by their failure to support legislation the Biden-Harris administration and Democrats passed to bring manufacturing and high-speed Internet to underserved communities like those in WV. The tariffs Trump is calling for (Kamala Harris calls them ‘the Trump sales tax’), would raise prices on goods, but most economists don’t believe they will bring manufacturing back to the USA. They didn’t during Trump’s first term.
The irony is that, “the politicians (that) angry heartland voters support (Trump received twice as many votes in West Virginia in 2020) oppose the very programs that aid these depressed areas….they channel this anger into support for politicians who will make their plight worse.”
Take it from a Nobel Prize winning economist, or from me, a retired public school teacher. If Donald Trump is elected president, his promises will not result in what Jim Justice falsely promised when he was elected Governor. West Virginia’s economy will not take off like a rocket ship.
Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston