The Decline of Appalachian Coal Data compiled by Downstream Strategies in Morgantown, West Virginia, found that coal employment in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia has dropped by about half since 1983.

The Daily Yonder writers looked at actual employment data for Wise County, VA, which was the focus of the Washington Post article. Although Wise County is located in the heart of Virginia's coal fields, mining jobs provided just 11.5% of county employment there in 2004, fewer than the jobs in retail (14.1%) or government (21.7%).

As Bishop and Marema write,

"Coal has been a declining part of the Appalachian employment picture for more than half a century. As the industry mechanized, it needed fewer miners. When more coal was mined from the surface, beginning in the early 1960s, the industry needed fewer miners still...In the last generation, the total coal employment has fallen by half. In the 30 years before that, the decline was steeper."

Their piece ends with a challenge to the popular notion that the coal jobs are falling due to environmental regulations.

"Coal is losing employees in the eastern mountains, but not because of any war. Coal is a shrinking part of the economy in Appalachia, both because the industry is efficient and because reserves are falling. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the (Washington) Post’s story portraying coal’s economic importance in Appalachia fits neatly with the coal industry’s desire to fight regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and mountaintop removal mining."