Greetings from Charleston, WV!

[vraiblonde]

Maybe they wouldn't want to live anyplace else, but many of them do. I've met and worked with lots of people from WV, western PA, and OH. They all talk about how great it is where they are from, but they don't go back, because they don't want to work for 10 bucks an hour. Until somebody figures out a way to replace the coal and steel jobs, it will always be a great place to visit, or be "from."

Charleston is a city, though. There are all kinds of places to work that don't involve coal and steel. It's a college town with all kinds of college town amenities.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Maybe they wouldn't want to live anyplace else, but many of them do. I've met and worked with lots of people from WV, western PA, and OH. They all talk about how great it is where they are from, but they don't go back, because they don't want to work for 10 bucks an hour. Until somebody figures out a way to replace the coal and steel jobs, it will always be a great place to visit, or be "from."

In the last 40 years there weren't really that many coal jobs, never were that many steel jobs except in wheeling. There use to be quite a few glass jobs but plastic packaging killed that in the 70's and 80's.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

It's a college town with all kinds of college town amenities.

Not really a college town, Morgantown, Huntington, and maybe to a lesser degree Buchannon, Elkins, and Wheeling qualify as "college towns".

 

[Blister]

I'm just basing my opinion from working with mostly blue collar guys, welders, steamfitters, electricians, etc. traveling to work, and or relocate to this area because of the lack of decent jobs in their home areas. I included western PA & rural Ohio because the guys I've worked with from those areas have the same stories.

Any way you look at it the economic stats for WV are not great.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income

 

[PeoplesElbow]

I'm just basing my opinion from working with mostly blue collar guys, welders, steamfitters, electricians, etc. traveling to work, and or relocate to this area because of the lack of decent jobs in their home areas.

Numbers are just that, numbers, you are talking about my father, grandfather, extended family. $10/hr isn't really that bad when you see you can buy a livable house for $50k in some areas.