Few states have been as devastated by the Obama administration’s war on coal as West Virginia and Kentucky. During the past seven years, they have reeled from bankruptcies in the mining and energy industries. Some 20,000 jobs have been lost. Fortunately, lawmakers in Charleston and Frankfort are moving toward pro-growth policies that might help their states make up for lost ground.
Right-to-work legislation, which gives workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union or pay union fees, could revitalize these states’...
Few states have been as devastated by the Obama administration’s war on coal as West Virginia and Kentucky. During the past seven years, they have reeled from bankruptcies in the mining and energy industries. Some 20,000 jobs have been lost. Fortunately, lawmakers in Charleston and Frankfort are moving toward pro-growth policies that might help their states make up for lost ground.
Right-to-work legislation, which gives workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union or pay union fees, could revitalize these states’ economies. Roughly half of U.S. states have right-to-work laws, and between 2004 and 2014 their economies grew 19.3%, according to our study of Bureau of Economic Analysis data. That compares with 10.2% for states without such laws. This growth advantage has persisted through every 10-year period since the 1960s, according to data from the 2014 book “The Wealth of States.”
Additional growth creates jobs and helps incomes rise faster. From 2005-15, the employment rolls in right-to-work states grew by 8.1%, our analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows, compared with the national average of 5.4% and only 4.0% in states where workers are forced to join a union. Meanwhile, personal income per capita grew 3.5% faster in right-to-work states, according to BEA data.
Democrats point to higher incomes in union states as proof that “right to work” really means “right to work for less.” Yet those states, concentrated in the Northeast and on the West Coast, are among the most expensive places to live. A 2013 analysis by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy adjusted for the cost of living and found that per capita personal incomes in right-to-work states were actually 4.1% higher than in union states.
These economic advantages would be a boon to West Virginia and Kentucky, where the war on coal has destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of families. Since President Obama took office, 335 West Virginia coal mines have closed, according to the West Virginia Coal Association. Nearly 10,000 mining jobs—over one-third of the industry’s employment in the Mountain State—have been eliminated, contributing to an unemployment rate of 6.3%, the fifth-highest in the country. Similar economic desperation exists in parts of Kentucky. Sixteen counties east of Frankfort had unemployment rates above 10% in December, and nearly every county was above the national rate of 4.9%.
These blighted areas are desperate for the economic opportunities that right to work could usher in. Many companies, especially manufacturers, cite these laws as one of the most important considerations when deciding where to locate their operations. Right to work is “the first lens on the decision,” Richard H. Thompson of the commercial real-estate company JLL said in the trade publication Area Development’s Q1/2015 Corporate Survey. A 2015 study from NERA Economic Consulting found that from 2001-12, the number of businesses in right-to-work states grew by 5.6%; in union states the number dropped by 0.8%.
West Virginia completed its right-to-work law earlier this month, when legislators overrode Gov. Ray Tomblin ’s veto of their bill. That makes the Mountain State the 26th in the country to enact such legislation, joining Indiana (2012), Michigan (2013) and Wisconsin (2015). When it comes to giving workers freedom from unions, more progress has been made in five years than in the past half century.
Momentum for change is also building in Kentucky. Thanks to the intransigence of state lawmakers in recent years, 12 counties have passed right-to-work laws of their own since 2014. They were dealt a momentary set back on Feb. 4, when U.S. District Judge David Hale ruled that, under the National Labor Relations Act, only state governments have authority to enact such legislation.
While that case is appealed to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawmakers in Frankfort should move ahead with a statewide law. Conventional wisdom once held that right to work was a nonstarter in the state given the anticipated opposition from a heavily unionized and once-thriving coal industry. Yet today, after years of regulatory assault, not a single unionized coal-mining job remains in the Bluegrass State.
A special election on March 8 for four vacant House seats could flip control of the chamber for the first time in 95 years, priming the state for right-to-work legislation. With 58% of Kentuckians supporting right to work, according to a March 2015 Echelon Strategies poll, Gov. Matt Bevin and state legislators should be compelled to follow West Virginia’s example.
Drawing manufacturers and entrepreneurs would go a long way toward revitalizing the areas hit hardest by the Obama administration. The same can’t be said of the proposals offered by his would-be successor, Hillary Clinton. Last year she suggested revitalizing coal communities by spending $30 billion on new infrastructure projects, job-training programs, an expanded New Markets Tax Credit and local “arts and culture” initiatives. Put another way, Mrs. Clinton wants government policies to compensate for the crushing costs of other government policies.
A thriving private economy is far more likely to lift thousands of people out of poverty, enabling businesses—not bureaucrats—to provide opportunities for the unemployed to restart their careers. The war on coal may have Kentuckians and West Virginians down, but they don’t have to be out.
Ms. Crigler and Mr. Huffman are, respectively, the Kentucky and West Virginia state directors for Americans for Prosperity.