Appalacian Regional Commission
Appalacian Regional Commission & Poverty in AppalachiaTHE APPALACHIAN REGIONAL COMMISSION
AND POVERTY IN APPALACHIA
By Brent M. Pergram, Master of Arts in Sociology
I. INTRODUCTION
Appalachia, as defined in the legislation from which the Appalachian Region Commission derives its authority, is a 200,000 square mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from south New York to northern Mississippi. Appalachia includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Almost 22 million people live in the 406 counties of the Appalachian Region, with 42% of the regions population being rural, compared with 20% of the national population.. Appalachia�s economic fortunes were based in the past mostly on the extraction of natural resources and manufacturing. The modern economy of most of the region, is gradually diversifying, with a heavier emphasis on services and widespread development of tourism. Coal remains an important resource, but it is not a major provider of jobs. Manufacturing is still an economic mainstay, but is no longer concentrated in a few major industries (ARC-About ARC-The Appalachia Region).
The main federal organization created to deal with Appalachian poverty was the Appalachian Regional Commission. The ARC�s mission is to be an advocate for and partner with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life.
The Appalachian Regional Commission was established by Congress in 1965 to support economic and social development in the Appalachian region. The Commission is a unique partnership composed of the governors of the 13 Appalachian states, and a presidential appointee representing the federal government. Grass roots participation is provided through local development districts- multi-county organizations with boards made up of elected officials, business people, and other leaders in the local communities.
ARC undertakes projects that address the five goals identified by ARC in its strategic plan:
1. Developing a knowledgeable and skilled population; 2. Strengthening the region�s physical infrastructure;
3. Building local and regional capacity; 4. Creating a dynamic economic base; 5. Fostering healthy people.
To meet these goals, ARC helps fund such projects as education and work force training programs, highway construction, water and sewer system construction, leadership development programs, small business startups and expansions, and development of health-care resources.
The way the ARC works is that each year Congress appropriates funds, which the ARC allocates to its member states. The Appalachian governors submit to ARC their state spending plans for the year, which include lists of projects they recommend for funding. The spending plans are reviewed and approved at a meeting of all the governors and the federal cochairman. The next step is approval of individual projects by the ARC federal cochairman. After the states submit project applications to ARC, each project is reviewed by ARC program analysts. The process is completed when the federal cochairman reviews a project and formally approves it.
The Appalachian Regional Commission funds programs in two broad categories, highway & area development. The highway program provides Appalachia with a modern system of four-lane highways the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS). The highway system is complemented by access roads that link the system to industrial and commercial sites.
The area development category provides funding for most ARC non-highway projects, such as education, water and sewer systems, and health care. The aim of all these projects is progress by people toward economic security and a better quality of life.
Primary care clinics built by the ARC have put modern health care within a 30 minute drive of every Appalachian adult and child. A network of vocational schools and technical and junior colleges has given thousands of Appalachians relevant skills for today�s job market. Modern sewer systems for industry have helped to create thousands of new jobs. Clean drinking water has been brought into the homes of hundreds of families for the very first time. New and rehabilitated housing at low to moderate cost has given thousands of Appalachian families their first opportunity at home ownership. Thousands of kids have gotten a good start in life in comprehensive child care programs funded by the ARC.
In doing these projects, the ARC joined other federal agencies, with the states, and local communities. In the future, the area development program will directly address the five goals of the ARC�s strategic plan. The ARC says that future projects will achieve goal objectives in at least of one the following areas: education, physical infrastructure, leadership, business development, and health care.
The area development category also includes the distressed counties program, which provides administrative support funds to the Region�s 71 local development districts. The ARC has provided special funds for the Region�s poorest counties since 1983. Currently 108 counties qualify for distressed county status on the basis of low per capita income and high rates of poverty and unemployment. The distressed county program focuses on providing badly needed public facilities, especially systems to furnish clean drinking water and sanitary waste disposal, and human resource projects such as literacy training. Under pre-1983 guidelines, most of these counties were too poor to qualify for federal aid for these facilities.
The local development district (LDD) program, which provides administrative support funds to the Regions 71 local development districts. To ensure that funds are used effectively and efficiently, and to strengthen local participation, ARC works with the states to support a network of multicounty planning and development organizations, or local development districts (LDD�s), throughout Appalachia. The 71 LDD�s cover all 406 counties in the ARC program. The LDD�s most important role is to identify priority needs of local communities. Based on these needs, the LDD�s work with their board members and other local citizens to develop plans for their communities� economic development, to target and meet the most pressing needs, and to build community unity and leadership.
The Clinton Administration requests $5.4 million in 1999 for support of the LDD program, which is the amount approved by the Commission in 1998. The LDD�s are the organizational and institutional units put in place to help implement the ARC program and its goals and objectives at the local level. They work with member governments, local businesses, and citizens to determine local needs and priorities and plan for and develop programs that are regional in scope. The transfer of Federal programs to states and localities and the decreasing availability of Federal funds have increased the LDD�s role and responsibilities in rural Appalachia. They fill the most pressing need in the entire rural development initiative, namely, the building of local capacity. They are the mechanism for ensuring that small governments have the capacity to compete for Federal and state funding, and to promote rural development in Appalachia. They provide competent support staff to member governments to plan, initiate, and implement projects at the grassroots level. The LDD�s in Kentucky received $626,000 in 1998, and this amount is estimated to stay the same in 1999 (ARC- Local Development Districts).
Area development includes special regional initiatives, which are undertaken to help Appalachia respond to new economic developments. In 1996, the ARC�s 13 governors and federal Co-Chairman Jesse L. White Jr. launched three new initiatives designed to encourage economic growth and boost the vitality of the Region: Internationalization of the Appalachian Economy, Telecommunications, and Leadership and Civic Development. A fourth initiative was Entrepreneurship that was launched in 1997. The initiatives are broadly defined program areas that allow each state to determine its own specific objectives based on individual needs (ARC-Regional Initiatives).
The ARC also has the J-l visa program, which enables health care professionals from foreign nations to work in health manpower shortage areas in Appalachia. Under certain circumstances, the ARC will request a waiver of immigration requirements for foreign-trained physicians doing residency work in the United States under the J-l visa program. Physicians receiving these waivers must practice for at least three years in rural Appalachia, in areas called Health Professional Shortage Areas, as identified by the US Public Health Service.
The following is the number of total projects in 1997 done by the ARC. In terms of highway projects they had 21 grants, all of which dealt with the Appalachian Development Highway. In terms of non-highway projects, their was a total of 419 grants, including 60 for business development, 3 for child development, 148 for community development, 57 for education and job training, 3 for environmental and natural resources, 21 for Health grants, 72 for local development district planning and administration, 28 for leadership and civic development, and 24 for research and technical grants. (ARC- Programs Project Totals 1997).
The following is a summary of the 1998 enacted budget and 1999 budget request of the ARC. In terms of the Appalachian Regional Development Program 57,555,000 million in 1998, was reduced to 56,589,000 million in
1999. The LDD Support and Technical Assistance maintained the same funding of 6,300,000 million. The Highways funding is going from 102,500,000 million in 1998 to 0 in 1999. In 1998 funding of the highway program accounted for 61% of the total ARC budget. The Administration proposes additional funding of $200 million in 1998 and $290 million in 1999 from the Highway Trust Fund. Starting in 1999, Appalachian highway construction is to be funded solely from the Highway Trust Fund. This ends the ARC�s involvement in its much criticized road construction efforts in Appalachia (ARC FY 1999 Budget Estimates).
The federal government defines poverty as three times the annual cost of a minimally adequate diet, as defined by the U.S. Agriculture Department. It varies by family size, number of children, and age of the head of household, with an annual adjustment made for inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). For example, a family of four with an income of $15,141 or less would be classified as poor according to the 1994 federal poverty thresholds.
A misconception that exists about poverty, is that the federal poverty thresholds offer an accurate and complete definition of who is poor. The poverty thresholds have been criticized for a number of shortcomings, which can cause one to underestimate the extent of poverty. The fact is that the conceptual basis of the federal poveerty thresholds- three times the cost of a subsistence diet- is no longer valid, as food now represents only one-fifth of the average household budget, while other expenses such as housing and child care, make up a larger share of the budget. Another problem with the threshold is that it implies that there is a black-and-white cut off point between the poor and the nonpoor.
But in reality the barely poor just below the poverty line will have more in common with the near-poor earning just above the threshold than with those earning less than half the threshold. The current poverty threshold captures neither proximity to poverty or depth of poverty. It is clear that federal poverty thresholds do underestimate poverty by ignoring the overall rise in national living standards, by adjusting only for inflation, results in a measure of poverty based on a constant 1960\\\'s standard of living. It is recommended that the concept of relative poverty should be used, because it would reflect rising living standards along with rising prices, which would show that the current thresholds are too low, since they are based on a 1960\\\'s standard of living, and the extent of poverty is therefore underestimated.
The thresholds are also criticized for understating a minimally adequate livelihood, by ignoring the rising standard of living or by setting the rates too low at the outset, which means that the real amount of money needed may be 50% more than the current poverty threshold based on surveys of the public.(FAMILIES FIRST, pp.3-4) Despite these problems, the federal poverty thresholds are the only widely available measures that are consistent across geographic areas. I will also be using data from the Appalachian Regional Commission, which has identified the most severely distressed counties across the nation and conducted a program to target more resources to these counties within Appalachia. I will be looking at the poverty data on Appalachian Kentucky counties.
Persistent Poverty.
The persistence of poverty in rural communities has been one of the frustrating enigmas of this century. Despite all the growth and changes that have happened over the decades, many rural communities, especially in the South and Appalachia, still lag far behind the rest of the nation in quality of employment and human development opportunities. The plight of the rural poor has gained national attention periodically, such as in the 1930\\\'s and 1960\\\'s, but no solutions have yet to solve the deep and structural problems of the rural poor.
In 1990 the number of counties with high concentrations of poverty was 765, with 535 of those counties having a long-term and persistent problem with poverty over many decades. They are mainly concentrated in the Southeast, Appalachia, and the Southwest, with others on Indian reservations in the North and West. These persistently poor counties represent 24 percent of all non-metro counties, 19 percent of the non-metro population, and 32 percent of the non-metro poor in the nation. The average unemployment rate in 1990 for these counties was 8.5 percent, as compared to the 6.6 percent non-metro average. But poverty is not only a problem of unemployment, because the prevalence of low-skill, low-paying jobs in rural areas means that many rural workers do not make enough money to pull them out of poverty. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that the nations poor are more likely to live in rural areas, with 25 percent of the poor, and nearly 30 percent of the full-time, full-year working poor.
Rural poverty counties are smaller and less urbanized, with over half being nonadjacent to a metro area, which limits access for residents to urban area jobs, especially because transportation services are usually lacking and low incomes decrease the possibility of private transportation. Also poor counties typically have less high school graduates, which makes them more prone to economic disadvantage. Most poor counties in average had larger numbers of high school dropouts putting them at risk of being unprepared to work and had people living in female-headed households. Despite the misconception that most poor are Black, nearly 80 percent of the non-metro poor are in fact, White. Along with poverty comes a lack of basic necessities such as health care, good nutrition, education, and public services that are needed to improve the lives of the rural poor.(U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)
The ARC used three socioeconomic measures (poverty, market income, and unemployment), to identify 606 counties in the United States that qualify as distressed, 150 of these counties are in Appalachia, with most being overwhelmingly rural. The state of Kentucky has historically ranked high among states with extensive rural poverty. In 1992, the ARC categorized 57 of the states 120 counties as distressed. The data shows that about three-fourths of the states distressed counties are in eastern Kentucky, with 38 of the 49 ARC counties categorized as distressed or severely distressed. The data shows that 29 of the 30 poorest counties in Kentucky are in Appalachia, and 16 of the poorest counties in all of Appalachia are in eastern Kentucky showing that these counties are among the poorest in the nation.(Eller,p.2) These poor counties need better infrastructures and improved education, health care, and public services.
The ARC says that the economic status of Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta as of 1998, based on the 1990 Census Poverty Rate, 1994 Market Income, and 1993-1995 Unemployment Rate, shows that distressed counties in have at least 150% the US unemployment rate (9.3%), 150% the US poverty rate, and less than 67% the US per capita market income ($12.074) or 200% poverty. Distressed counties of Appalachia have a 9.3% or more Unemployment rate, as compared to 6.2% US average. They have a 19.7% or more poverty rate, as compare to the US average of 13.1%. Distressed counties in Appalachia have a per capita market income of $12,074 or less, as compared to the United States average of $18,201 (ARC-Distressed Counties of Appalachia, FY 1998). All of this data shows that the Appalachia region is in distress, and has a many problems that must be overcome.
The Poverty of Men.
The 1994-95 Kentucky Poverty Commission says that the \\\"current government programs do not fully address three major needs of men in poverty: guidance in obtaining academic or vocational education, an explanation of services available through the JOBS program or the Job Training Partnership Act, and employment counseling.\\\"(FAMILIES FIRST,p.30) The absences of training or experience limits employment opportunities. Poor mothers automatically receive educational counseling as part of the AFDC/ JOBS program, but poor men usually do not participate in public assistance programs that require attending educational classes, nor are they advised of available education programs, such as the fact that non-custodial parents may be eligible to participate in the JTPA and JOBS programs.
The Commission found that the two most common problems for both men and women in poverty is the lack of transportation and the tax burden. The public transportation system of the state does not accommodate residents in Eastern Kentucky. The state income tax, which in 1994 had the sixth lowest income threshold, meaning that even those making $5,000 had to pay income taxes in Kentucky. The state offers a tax credit to help reduce the burden of the tax, such as a 50% credit for those making less than 10,000.(FAMILIES FIRST.p.30-2) The state of Kentucky ranks number one in taxing the poor, which hurts the working poor most of all and shows a need to look at abolishing income taxes on the poor.
The Poverty of Women in Appalachia.
The family structure of most of the poor in Appalachia is single female headed households. The reasons that more children live in households headed by single parents is largely due to increasing levels of divorce and a growing number of births to unmarried women. Single parent households grew by 64 percent from 1970 to 1993, from 3.8 million to 10.5 million. Single parent households make up 11 percent of all families in Kentucky. In Kentucky among family households with children, 21.6 percent were headed by single parents in 1990 and 83 percent of these households are headed by women. Nationally estimates indicate that children who live in households headed by single parents are six times as likely to be poor. Kentucky children who live in single parent headed households have a large 51.8 percent child poverty rate, which is twice as high as the 24.5 percent child poverty rate. Also 40 percent of women who head families with children are officially poor, as compared to only 11 percent of married couples with children.(Smith-Mello,p.13)
Single mothers that are poor, are disadvantaged because their child-rearing responsibility can result in economic and social hardships for their families with low earnings capacities and the absence of economies of scale. Single female headed families only have the earnings of their work to provide for the family, but it is far less than two parent families that can pool their earnings and responsibilities.
The problem is worsened by the fact that female workers earn far less than men, with a wage gap among full time workers of women earning 70 percent as much as men. The low level of public assistance programs support is another problem. In order to qualify for government assistance like Aid to families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, Medicaid and public housing a single mother must be poor and was not able to work or risk losing all benefits. This was viewed as creating a disincentive to work and forced the recipient to continue drawing benefits which do not provide enough to lift a family out of poverty. Single mothers are therefore forced to either work with low earnings capacity and no benefits, living at or near the poverty line, or not work, live below the poverty line and have Medicaid to provide for the health of her children. In Kentucky women in the AFDC program lose all benefits after only one year of work, and even though it usually works for the first year, it fails in the long run leaving most women at or near poverty with no medical assistance for their children.
The lack of child support payments from non-custodial fathers is another reason why female headed families are in poverty, and that only six of ten mothers eligible for child support actually have such an award. Also for those that do receive payments, only half get the full amount and over a quarter receive nothing at all.(Garfinkel,p.208) When child support is not paid AFDC provides the support for those that qualify with about 41 percent of the money the state collecting going to reimburse the AFDC Program in 1995. In 1993 the state of Kentucky received 20 percent of AFDC money through child support collection, compared with 12 percent nationwide. The collection of child support payments can help lift women out of poverty. Most women are not informed to the fact that there is legal services to help collect child support.(Families First,p.26) In the article \\\"reducing the child support welfare disincentive problem,\\\" Bassi and Lerman say that the state the custodial parents receiving AFDC would be allowed to get a larger income gain from child support, but mothers would only be able to get the extra money by leaving and staying off of welfare, which would be hard to do for women that lack education and experience. In the article \\\"How will welfare recipients fare in the labor market?, Danziger, and Lehman say that the average welfare recipient will have great trouble in the labor market trying to find a good paying job that is above the poverty line.
The need for affordable child care and health care is a major dilemma facing single mothers in Kentucky. The state of Kentucky does provide a child care allowance of about $243 per month to mothers participation in the JOBS program (Job Opportunities and Basic Skills). The AFDC recipient is given child care assistance, and once AFDC payments stop, they can receive Transitional Child Care assistance if they meet income eligibility requirements. If they do not meet such income requirements, they must get help from non-profit organizations or suffer the burden of the cost on her own. The fact is that child care is very expensive and the allowance is not enough to offset the costs. Single parents cannot afford child care, with infants costing almost $100 a week. For rural women they not only lack the ability to afford child care, but even when they can afford it, there is a lack of child care facilities in rural areas. In 1993 Kentucky subsidized the child care expenses of 27,000 children, and another 10,000 remained on a waiting list, and countless others failed to register when the waiting list was frozen in the fall of 1993. Kentucky businesses do not subsidize the creation of child care facilities, meaning that few businesses provide financial support to develop and operate child care services for employees children.(Families First.p.25-30) A barrier to self-sufficiency in Kentucky\\\'s assistance programs is a lack of communication between the social worker and the recipient that causes the client not to know all the options available to gain independence.(Families First,p.41)
Women in the workforce.
In 1990 the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 54 percent of working age women in Kentucky are in the labor force, which has helped to maintain a standard of living that would be lost for most two parent families.((Smith-Mello,p.63)
In the article \\\"Impact of work, family, and welfare receipt on women\\\'s self-esteem in young adulthood,\\\" Marta Elliott used a national longitudinal survey of youth data of young women from 1980 to 1987 to show that marriage improved self-esteem, while motherhood and welfare receipt reduced self-esteem. Also being employed had a positive effect on change in self-esteem, especially for younger mothers, and shows that work promotes a positive self image of women, which is why becoming independent of welfare is positive with a good job. But a problem is that most women on welfare lack the education or job experience to get good paying jobs with benefits that would promote self-esteem.
In the article \\\"Putting poor mothers to work,\\\" Ellen Bassuk says that the situation of women receiving AFDC and the welfare reform law will have an adverse effect on women, because legislators have ignored the ways in which women\\\'s multiple roles as parents, homemakers, and breadwinners interplay in a labor market where entry-level jobs do not pay a livable wage.
In the article \\\"Poverty, work, and community: a research agenda for an era of diminishing federal responsibility,\\\" Claudia Coulton discusses how welfare time limits and strong work requirements make employment a necessity for family survival, but the availability of jobs has reached new lows in many low income areas. Also jobs with wages that can keep a family above the poverty line are decreasing. If most welfare recipients are to find steady jobs, low income communities need to change employment opportunities to prepare those on welfare for work, to offer access to work, and support to working families.
Margaret Brooks and John Buckner in an article on work and welfare, conducted a study to look at individual level factors that predict the employability of poor women. Their findings suggest that increased education and positive parental role models are extremely predictive of future employment. Also both added income from a partner and delayed childbirth increased the chances of a poor women gaining employment. The lack of affordable child care was found to be the greatest barrier to employment for women.
II. DEVELOPMENT IN APPALACHIA.
The 1980\\\'s was a tough decade on rural America, with many rural communities losing jobs and little income growth. The industries of Appalachia were especially hard hit, with new machines costing tens of thousands of miners their jobs, and clothing plants cutting benefits, laying off workers and closing down as production shifted to places where workers were paid much lower wages. Also small farmers had to deal with high production costs and low crop prices, forcing some to find off-farm work or get out of farming. But new factories did bring in thousands of jobs into Appalachia, which were mainly low wages jobs with little or no benefits. New highways is the main accomplishment of the ARC, but the highways attracted outside-owned discount stores, fast-food stores, and national hotel chains that competed with locally owned stores, causing many to close. The loss of these locally owned business has damaged the traditional culture of the region and made the region more like mainstream America.
Appalachian counties suffered out migration of its population from 1980-1990, with up to 5% out migration in some parts of the region, and 5% or more in other parts of Appalachia. Eastern Kentucky mainly suffered from out migration of 5% or more, except in those counties next to the interstate, which suffered up to 5% out migration (U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1980-1990). The population change in Appalachia from 1990 to 1997 shows that Appalachia gone from 20,915,588 in 1990 to 22,106,794 in 1997, which was a 5.7% change. This population growth was less than the national average of 7.6%. Appalachian Kentucky gone from a population of 1,045,358 million to 1,096,665 million, which was a 4.9% increase with have of the increase coming from migration into the state (ARC-Population Change in Appalachia, 1990-1997).
Kentucky\\\'s demographic data strongly suggests that a job is the most important characteristic of an adult family being above the poverty line. The state of Kentucky has a economic development strategy that offers tax subsidies and low cost loans to encourage the attraction, expansion, and retention of jobs. While admitting that the state does offer one of the most attractive incentive programs in the southeast. And not debating the issues of whether tax breaks should be used to attract business, the state Commission on Poverty is critical of the current economic development system for not linking job creation to employment of the poor or unemployed. The state and the ARC should link job creation to the employment of the poor, because now most of the jobs goes to those that come in from the outside with the training and education to fill the manufacturing positions. While the poor in the counties, with little education and little or no experience are left without jobs. The government needs to offer job training and placement, and let the poor in the counties get the new jobs, instead of letting them go to persons from other counties. Also the states economic development programs do not guarantee that wages paid by employers benefiting from taxpayer state subsidies will be enough to lift a family above the poverty level or to provide desperately needed benefits, especially health care.(Families First,p.49)
Employment is a commonly used indicator of persistent distress in rural communities. In the 1980\\\'s unemployment rates rose significantly throughout Central Appalachia due to structural changes in the economy, such as the coal industry. Unemployment rates did decline in Appalachian Kentucky from 16.4 percent in 1983 to 7.7 percent in 1990. The decline was slower than the nation as a whole, indicating the weaknesses of local economies, such as Morgan and Elliott counties maintaining of above 20 percent unemployment rates throughout most of the 1980\\\'s. But unemployment rates by themselves are poor indicators of persistent distress within rural communities, because they ignore discouraged workers who have given up on finding a job in the region.(Eller,p.19) Most of Kentucky\\\'s 49 Appalachian counties had official unemployment rates above the state average, but the real unemployment rate was estimated to be far higher, up to 50 percent higher in some counties because the state does not count people who have given up finding a job and many that did find work were underemployed.(JOBS & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, p.4) Also lower unemployment rates in poor counties does not mean that their are less poor people or that the poor in the county got the jobs, because most of the poor do not have the education or training experience to get the jobs, which means that employees of the company migrate into the county to work and then go back to their own counties when work is over. Those that work in the county but who do not also live in the county takes the revenues from their job and spends it somewhere else, such as in more prosperous urban areas, which gives the urban areas the economic benefits, and leaves the poorer counties with little or no benefits from in-migration workers.
As of 1996, the employment rate in the US was 126,708,000 million, and in Appalachia it was 10,027,834 million people. The official number of unemployed in the US was 7,235,000 million (5.4%), and in Appalachia the official number of unemployed was 604,914 (5.7%). In the Appalachian part of Kentucky the total number of employed is 408,016 thousand, and the number of unemployed is 35,868 thousand, with an 8.1% unemployment rate.
Eller says that a better indicator of the employment situation of distressed communities is to look at the long dependent single industry economies upon which many of the communities depend. Many of the industries in the region experienced dramatic economic decline during the 1980\\\'s, as the nation moved from an industrial based economy with low education and low skill jobs, to communication and information based industries. Technology changes in the coal industry and the loss of manufacturing jobs to the Third World caused a restructuring of the nature of employment and income within Appalachia, and left many rural communities with neither the physical infrastructure or human capital to make the transition. For example the coal industry reduced the number of individual miners by 25 percent from 1981 to 1990 in eastern Kentucky, even though coal production increased by more than 11 percent. Eastern Kentucky had a 7 percent increase in manufacturing jobs over the 1980\\\'s, with most being located in counties along the interstates and adjacent to the Bluegrass. The counties of Madison, Russell, and Pulaski gained over 3,000 jobs, while seven of the ten poorest counties in the area lost about 1,500 manufacturing jobs.(Eller,p.21)
The regional economy restructured itself in the 1980\\\'s from manufacturing to service sector jobs, which was the sector that saw the greatest job growth in eastern Kentucky (40 percent).(Eller,p.22) But the greatest increase in service jobs came in the growth center counties like Madison, Pulaski, Boyd, Clark, and Laurel instead of the poorest counties in Eastern Kentucky.(Eller,p.22) A growing income disparity between Appalachia\\\'s most distressed communities and the prosperous growth centers increased because of the decline of traditional industries and the rise of lower income service sector jobs. The service sector jobs in the Bluegrass and in Appalachian growth centers were higher paying professional jobs such as banking, health care, and education.(Eller,p.22) Service sector jobs in distressed areas toward food preparation, health aids, personal services and other low income, low benefit, and often part time employment.(Eller,p.23) Appalachia�s economic structure with lower education levels, and the location of higher level service jobs limited the opportunities for family incomes to increase in rural parts of the region.
Eller says that despite the popular stereotype, only about half of those living below the poverty level in distressed Appalachian Kentucky communities receive public assistance. He says that the gap between public assistance ratios and high poverty rates indicates the presence of an underground local economy that sustains poor families who have limited job opportunities in the public sector.(Eller,p.23) I would add that it could be due to the stigma attached to getting aid.
Educational attainment in a major problem in eastern Kentucky, especially distressed communities. Severe poverty is associated with low levels of educational achievement, such as census tracts and counties with the highest poverty rates also have extremely low percentages of population with a high school diploma or technical job training.(Eller,p.27) Eller gives the example of Owsley County, which had the lowest per capita income on the state, and the poorest county in Kentucky with a 52 percent rate. It only has one in three residents over the age of 25 that completed high school, and only one in ten graduated from college. Eller says that improvements in curriculum, school financing, and school governance that was brought about by the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in 1990, to try to balance the scales on Kentucky education, but in distressed Appalachian counties where thousands of under-educated adults and school age kids that dropped out of the public schools, education is still a barrier to individual opportunity and community self improvement.(Eller, p.29) The curriculum and academic environment that is taught in schools in schools create a cultural barrier to the rural poor of Appalachia, as well as physical barriers from the lack of transportation and child care to long daily commutes to school have prevented the rural poor of the region from taking advantage of educational opportunities available to the urban middle class, and have promoted a condition of under-education and powerlessness in the distressed communities of the region.(Eller,p.29) The rural school consolidation movement of the last several decades, has taken many community schools out of poorer areas and has contributed to the economic and institutional decline of these communities. Eller says that \\\"Marginalized by economic and educational change, poor communities lack the physical resources and the human development opportunities to negotiate the new post-industrial society and to build a brighter future based upon local community goals and values.\\\"(p.29)
The ARC has joined in partnership with Projectneat (National Education Advancement Term), Inc., to link 1,250 Appalachian schools to the Internet in 1997. It helps to improve education in Appalachia. They will also provide training to cover Internet skills. The goal is to prepare American�s students for the twenty-first century. The Internet can help link Appalachian schools to the world beyond the region. This was possible thanks to the donation of 1,500 Internet boxes by Zilog, and each school receives a 27 inch television. Since 1965, the ARC has funded nearly $600 million in education projects in 13 states (ARC-PNEAT Press Release).
Housing is another economic indicator that links economic resources and human development capacity to show the quality of housing available to the poor. Housing is a measure of a community\\\'s ability to create wealth, but is also a community\\\'s capacity for health, work productivity, social stability, and even educational success. Central Appalachia has experienced some dramatic changes over the last three decades in housing, and the availability of public housing, running water, inside plumbing and sewage disposal.(Eller,p.30) But eastern Kentucky still lags far behind are rest of the state and nation in providing quality housing for the regions poor. Major housing differences exist not only between Appalachian Kentucky and the state as a whole, but within the area as well. The worst housing continues to be located in those counties with the highest poverty and low per-capita income. Eller says \\\"The most distressed communities and the poorest people continue to be plagued by inadequate housing and the lack of modern communication and sanitation facilities.\\\"(Eller,p.30) The average median housing value in eastern Kentucky was 15 percent lower that the rest of Kentucky. Eller says that as is \\\"true of poverty rates, income levels, educational attainment, and employment opportunities, the lowest housing values cluster around a group of counties in the upper Kentucky River watershed.\\\"(Eller,p.31) Low housing values in eastern Kentucky represent not only differences in construction, and size, but also in the dramatic increase in mobiles homes in the region since 1960. In the ten poorest counties about 26 percent of the housing units in 1990 were mobile homes, compared to the Kentucky average of less than one percent. Mobile homes provide less living space, depreciate rapidly in value, are susceptible to fire, and promotes a sense of impermanence in communities. Mobile homes reflect the limits of economic growth in recent years and the continued uncertainty about the future in these distressed communities.(Eller, p.31) In 1970, 37 percent of housing units in eastern Kentucky lacked indoor plumbing, but this was reduced to 6 percent by 1990. In the ten poorest counties, more than 10 percent of the houses still lack complete plumbing facilities, which is over three times the state average. The most distressed counties also lack access to telephones, with about 20 percent of the housing units having no telephone, as compared to 9 percent across the rest of Kentucky.(Eller,p.31-3)
The Appalachian regional Commission, which was created in 1965 to help with cooperation between federal, state, and local governments for the improvement of the quality of life in the region, encouraged comprehensive regional planning to use state and federal resources to achieve its developmental goals. It has channeled more than $7 billion into the region, with Appalachian Kentucky receiving more than $766 million dollars. Since the 1960\\\'s major improvements have been made in terms of housing, education, and health care, but the development has been incomplete, uneven and unequal. Levels of community distress in Kentucky differ according to place and measures of human resource capacity like education, housing, job training, health, etc. Analysis of the geographic information, reveals that those counties receiving the greater funds were also the more populous, and are located along the interstate or corridor highways, and contain one or more cities with population over 5,000. Eller says \\\"residents in wealthier and urban places are more likely to benefit from ARC expenditures than those in poorer and rural communities. In some cases the per capita expenditures were three times as much.\\\"(Eller, p.33-6) Eller says \\\"the most severely distressed communities within the region have not shared equally in the gains made through ARC programs\\\".(Eller, p.38) He says the communities that are least able to generate sustainable economic growth have not benefited proportionately in the resources available to correct these deficiencies.(Ibid)
Agriculture\\\'s contribution to Kentucky\\\'s economy has waned in terms of both income and employment, even though farm production increased. The total amount of farmland in Kentucky has dropped from 21 million acres in 1930 to 14 million acres in 1994. Also from 1980 to 1990, the state lost 28 percent of its farm population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a reflection of the declining role of farming in the lives of rural Kentuckian, showing that the economy of scale realized from more advanced equipment and farming techniques can lead to increased agricultural output while needing fewer farmers to steadily expand.(Smith-Mello,p.46) The future of burley tobacco is in question because it is under heavy attack from several fronts, which are: increasing taxation on cigarettes at the state and federal level; heightened awareness of the health risks associated with the use of tobacco; declining levels of domestic tobacco content in United States manufactured cigarettes; and the increasing abundance of high quality burley tobacco on the world market.(Smith-Mello,p.47) And based on these trends tobacco experts expect that the states basic burley quota could decline by as much as 40 percent over the next 10 years. The impact of these trends will be tremendous because more than 60,000 of the states 90,000 farms grow tobacco as the main agricultural commodity, which could mean that if these farmers don\\\'t find an economical alternative to tobacco, many could be thrown into poverty.
The uncertain future of coal is not a result of the availability of resources, but in nature and regulatory and technological environment that will develop in the coming years. Even though Kentucky ranks among the top three coal producing states in the United States, along with Wyoming and West Virginia, its long-term outlook is uncertain.
The Kentucky Geological Survey says that coal naturally occurs in 57 Kentucky counties, 20 in the western coal fields and 37 in the eastern coal fields, with Pike county leading the state in Kentucky coal production with 22.7 million tons during 1992-93. The Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals said that in 1992-93, 174.3 million tons of coal were mined in Kentucky, with a estimated gross value of over $4 billion. Many of the small mining operations have gone out of business over the years because of the effects of competition, costs of equipment and environmental remediation. Also widespread consolidation of the coal industry has lead to fewer companies and fewer jobs, with the total number of coal mines in Kentucky falling from 1,769 mines in 1990 to 752 mines in 1992, an enormous 58 percent decrease. The number of strip or surface mines in the state have also declined from 942 to 270. The declining number of mines has lead to declining numbers of coal miners, from 61,800 in 1940 to 27,500 in 1993. As discussed earlier technological advances have been the main reason for diminishing labor force needs, while still having expanded coal production. The Bureau of Economic Analysis projects that employment in mining may remain somewhat stable over the next 25 years, but after 2020 they project a loss of 7,000 workers. Kentucky could lose more coal jobs because of environmental regulations, especially in western Kentucky where reserves are high in sulfur content. Also only about half of the remaining coal resources are available for mining because many coal seems are too thin for deep mining, but it is expected that the state will produce as much coal over the next 40 years that as it did over the past 75 years. New technologies may force coal to compete with other energy sources over the coming decades, which creates an uncertain future for the coal industry.(Smith-Mello,p.42-5) Also environmental regulations, such as clean air regulations is leading the coal industry to develop technologies to remove as many as 18 harmful trace elements in coal, but the problem of complying with regulations to reducing sulfur emissions are still being developed. Coal may be relatively stable for the next couple of decades, but the state needs to come up with new environmental friendly energy production technologies to replace coal or risk being left in the dust.
Manufacturing is predicted to decline nationwide, but due to the low wage market of Kentucky is making job gains, but globalization and technological advancement may lead to fewer manufacturing jobs in America. In 1991, the state of Kentucky employed more than 271,000 workers in the manufacturing sector, or about 19 percent of the total states job market. It is expected that manufacturing will remain stable over the next 25 years in Kentucky, but will decline by 5,000 jobs by 2020. They predict that from 2020 to 2040 the state will lose 18,400 manufacturing jobs. Kentucky\\\'s manufacturing strength, both apparel, and industrial machinery, including assembly plants and the parts and material suppliers for them are extremely important to the states future. Kentucky has over 4,000 manufacturing firms, with 98 percent of them employing less than 500 workers. The small manufacturers use little technology or automation, and most report a lack of skilled employees to use state of the art processes. A problem with the manufacturing base in the state is that many branch plants in Kentucky were attracted to the state due to the ready availability of cheap labor in rural communities. These plants are likely to take advantage of NAFTA and go for even cheaper labor in Third World countries, such as poultry, meat processing plants, textiles and apparel industry operators that could cost thousands of manufacturing jobs and leave the small communities with a low skilled labor force with little hope for good paying jobs.(Smith-Mello,p.50-2)
A major option to the uncertain economic future of Tobacco, and coal, and of low wage manufacturing jobs, may be the hardwoods product industry. Kentucky hardwoods could be used to make a wood products industries to provide significant benefits to the regions economy. Kentucky is the nations fourth largest producer of hardwood lumber, but it reaps only a fraction of the value of its forest products because of the virtual absence of a secondary, value added manufacturing component within the state. About 75 percent of the 700 million board feet of lumber cut in the state every year is shipped out of the state, which has enabled neighboring states to benefit from Kentucky\\\'s abundant resources, such as Tennessee has the same acreage of forest land, but sales $3 billion worth of forest products as compared to Kentucky\\\'s $1 billion. Kentucky\\\'s share of the forest industry establishment is the smallest among surrounding states, with Tennessee and Virginia enjoying three to seven times larger shares of U.S forest product establishments with the same level of harvested woods. In order for the state to develop the enormous potential as a secondary wood industry, the state needs to invest in expertise and entrepreneurs. The U.S. Department of Commerce found that the forest industry in Kentucky had five major deficiencies, with the main one being the absence of skilled management personnel, and that eastern Kentucky\\\'s abundant but unskilled labor force posed problems for the long term development potential of the industry. Most skilled graduates of vocational schools have been forced to leave the region to find jobs. Transportation and communications infrastructures are among the other problem�s that limits the likelihood of industry. The long term value of the states forests are being threatened by the practice of high grading, removing the best quality trees without replacing them, which is estimated leave two-thirds of the new growth in the state as cheap low grade lumber. One expert recommends that the following: existing industries and industrial recruitment strategies can be used to develop the secondary wood industry; use existing institutions, state agencies, state universities, and supporting organizations to assist development and deliver services to the wood industry; And focus resources to the development of human capital rather than on buildings, such as proving funds for vocational training.(Smith-Mello,p.53-4)
While tourism is seen as a viable and sustainable option for the development of rural communities, it has not proven to be a solution to poverty because most jobs created from tourism are seasonal low wage jobs with no benefits. Kentucky ranks forth in the nation in the number of historic sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The potential for tourism to increase due to the graying of America, which is good for the state because older tourists have been found to like touring historic sites. Also because more families like short vacations, Kentucky\\\'s central location places it within a day\\\'s drive for half of the nations population. But tourism often lead to the degradation of the cultural and environmental resources that attracted the tourists in the first place. And it usually creates low skill, low wage, seasonal jobs with low yearly incomes, persistent poverty, and dependence upon social programs, such as Food Stamps, and unemployment benefits during the out of season months. Another major problem is that the employees in the tourism industry that work for hotel/motel, restaurant and retail workers are exempt from wage and hour laws governing the use of overtime. Strategies need to be developed that promote local ownership, require developers to make major initial and ongoing investment in human and social infrastructure, such as day care, training, and education, and raise the quality, and increase the benefits of the tourism products.(Smith-Mello,p.55-6) The crafts industry had an overall economic impact of over 52 million dollars for 1993, and it could be expanded and strengthened by the tourism industry. Michal Smith-Mello says that \\\"Strong citizen participation in all phases of development, from planning to zoning requirements designed to preserve scenic qualities and natural resources to taxation strategies designed to ensure an equitable return to local communities, is essential to long-term success. The strategies for expanding local ownership and integrating the local industries, such as Kentucky\\\'s craft industry, are also critical to expanding benefits to Kentuckians.\\\"(Smith-Mello,p.56)
Michal Smith-Mello says \\\"Small enterprises are expected to be the engine of our future economy, fueled by expertise, capital and a broad-based commitment to their development.\\\"(57) Also small businesses are important to Kentucky\\\'s future, especially since 97 percent of the state\\\'s 66,604 businesses are defined as small with less than 500 employers, and the state ranks high in the number of proprietorship, earned income and business formations, but need to expand exports and increase the number of women owned small businesses. Inadequate capital may prove to be a problem for start-up businesses in the state. The health sector is expected to enjoy the growth, & the state already has an advanced infrastructure in place to support it.(58)
Kentucky families are having declining incomes because of structural shifts in industries, which block their entry into the middle class. Employment increased from 1 million in 1986 to 1.2 million in 1991, nearly 75 percent of the employment comes from three main industries manufacturing, retail and services, with the higher wage manufacturing industry losing employment, while lower wage service and retail industries have gained employment. Part time work is used by employers to avoid costly benefits, and the state of Kentucky remained relatively constant and similar to the national trends from 1982 to 1992. The states labor force was made up of 19.2 percent voluntary & involuntary part-time
employees in 1992.(Smith-Mello,p.67)
The number of families in Kentucky who work but remain poor has expanded growing from 9.4 percent in 1980 to 10.2 percent in 1990 with most of the increase based on a higher percent of working poor in urban areas. The working families that are most likely to be in poverty are working black families and female headed families, with gender and racial gaps growing.(Smith-Mello,p,65-7)
The gulf between the haves and have nots may be pushing prosperity father out of the reach of most people, especially the poor. From 1980 to 1990 those earning under $14,000 increased by 3 percent from 37 percent to 40 percent, while those earning $14,000 to $24,000 decreased by 2 percent and those over $41,000 was the only group to make more money.(Smith-Mello,p.72-3)
III. The failure of current policies to end poverty and the need for new ones.
The culture of poverty model begins with a concept of Appalachia as a subculture within which low-status families developed a deviant and dysfunctional culture that blames the people for poverty by saying that they have a traditionalist subculture unable to adapt to the modern world, and that negative personal traits, such as being lazy, dumb hillbillies. Lewis (1978) say that the identification of elements of the subculture as causal agents in causing poverty while ignoring or minimizing the effect of changes in the social, economic and political environment is wrong. It does fail to examine the interaction of larger societal forces and the situational quality of life in low status groups, such as those found in Appalachia.(Fiene,p.30-6)
The media for many decades have promoted stereotypical images of Appalachian\\\'s as poor, lazy and dependent. The main reason for this image of the regions poor is tied to the middle class American\\\'s belief that the lifestyles of the poor are why they remain impoverished. This is the view of those who advance the culture of poverty model. In his book about how television frames political issues, Shanto Iyengar shows in his research that the media and the public was more likely to see individual causes for the poverty of single mothers, while social causes were attributed to the poverty of men. The media coverage shifts responsibility from society and lays the blame on poor single mothers and blacks for their condition.(p.67) The media�s news coverage promotes mainstream American values, and pushes cultural values as factors for continued poverty among minority groups. This is not only due to dominant cultural values but also to the negative media coverage of poor people that shows a false reality, far different from those of the average person on welfare. Iyengar shows how the simplistic television framing of issues like poverty play an important role in shaping attitudes of political responsibility, and that episodic news frames on poverty tends to cause individualist attributes to be applied to the problem. That basically means that the media usually ignores the problem, but when they do report on it, they cite individual cases, usually of minorities or follow the government line, such as only reporting on it when the government releases favorable information about poverty rates, while ignoring the daily plight of the typical poor person.(p.128) The media�s simplistic coverage leads to many popular misconceptions about those on welfare, such as that most people are trapped in poverty, while in reality most leave the AFDC program in one or two years, with only about 18% staying on welfare for more than 5 years.(Albelda, p.195)
Lehman and Danziger in their article, \\\"Ending welfare, leaving the poor to face new risk,\\\" says that until 1996 when the new welfare reform law was passed by the United States Congress, one common thread ran through the fabric of American welfare state was a commitment to protect the poor, and not blame the children or their parents. But the new welfare reform law operates under the belief that mothers must take the blame for their situation and that they can and should return to the workforce. The fact is that many welfare recipients will not be offered a job, or not a good one that provides good wages and benefits. Some children may benefit from the changes but others will suffer, because high poverty areas like Appalachia lack the infrastructure, lack educational opportunities, and lack the job base to provide for most of those on welfare. In the article \\\"Why do they hate me so much? A history of welfare and its abandonment in the United States,\\\" Ann Withorn discusses the political shifts that have permitted the demonization of welfare recipients and considers the effects on the lives of poor people, especially women. She says that blaming welfare for the country\\\'s continuing economic problems deflects attention from the failure of the market economy to provide enough work at livable wages for everyone, and that a newly authoritarian state is being created under the rhetoric of welfare reform. Ruth Salomon in her article, \\\"Welfare reform and the real lives of the poor: introduction,\\\" looks at the sizable gap between the reality of poor women\\\'s lives and the frequently glib and simplistic solutions embraced by welfare reform and ask why America has turned against public welfare and its recipients. In the article, \\\"The Selfish Decade,\\\" the author says that the United States has become a more selfish society. Individual success has been promoted and most stress responsibility, initiative, and volunteerism, but the flip side of this is a disregard for the common good. This is why the U.S. is at the bottom of industrialized nations in terms of taxes, public ownership, and spending for entitlements, welfare, and public housing. The labor market in the U.S. allows unskilled and temporary workers to receive far lower wages than those in almost all other developing nations. Since 1980 the U.S. has added 28 million new jobs, but the downside is 11 million working poor. The rewards for success have increased, and the consequences of failure in America has also increased, and has lead to what the author calls a \\\"plantation\\\" economy in which a small elite dominated the benefits of low inflation, record profits, and equity growth, while others call it a \\\"superstar\\\" economy. An economy where a few at the top, such as the chief executive officers at American firms had salary increases of 30 percent, but the average wages of average Americans gone up by only 2.5 percent. Now it appears that their is a conservative backlash against government activism and a return to the promotion of the classic American laissez-faire, individualistic middle class value society.(WORLD PRESS REVIEW,Sept.96\\\',p34-5)
Jenchs and Edins article (1995) attacks the myth that teen mothers would have enough money to raise a family if they would just wait until their twenties to have a baby. But the reality is that it is not the having of a child that causes poverty, but other factors, such as lack of education, and job training that increases the chances of poverty. They also say that a person would have to make 18,000 a year, or over $9 dollars an hour in order to escape poverty, and pay for child care, health care, and household expenses. Laura Kallin Kaye in her book review, �Dispelling Myth of the Welfare Queen,� dispels the myth that welfare recipients are Cadillac-driving, champagne-sipping, penthouse living welfare queens. They do this by showing the real lives of two women on welfare in Philadelphia and the real life problems that forced them into poverty, such as divorce, loss of a job, and domestic violence.
The symbolic interactionist perspective views the human being as interacting with society and having a free will, which enables them to change regardless of what happened in the past. I believe that means that the person changes with each new interaction based on what they learn, to alter, transform or even replace their previous perspective in response to new and ever changing situations. The individual is not trapped in static, never changing roles, but have the ability to change their role and change their status in society based on human interactions that can redefine the way the person is viewed by others. Hewitt says that �human conduct depends upon the creation and maintenance of meaning,� which means the conduct is predicated on meaning that arises and changes with a given situation.(24) Hewitt says that �Society and culture shape and constrain conduct, but they are also the product of conduct.�(pp.26-7)
Symbolic interactionism is a theory that has subjective assumptions that lets them see that there are no universal truths, especially when looking at a micro level at the individual where each person can have their own perspectives and own subjective attitudes as to what is right or wrong, what is truth, what is morality, and so on. This theory lets one look at problems from the point of view of the individual, which is a grounded approach that lets a sociologist focus and narrowly define issues and solutions, developing loose hypothesis and changing them based on interaction with the observed participant in the research process. It can show life as it really is for those being studied. The theory does believe in the sociology of regulation, that there is inherent social order, and cooperation among human beings and therefore accepts that society does have consensus that makes interaction possible. But it can also show how lack of interaction between various groups in society, such as the poor and the middle class can cause misunderstanding and conflict.
Berger and Luckmann (1967) developed the concept of the social construction of reality. They believed that social reality is not a single, objective quantity but a socially-constructed feature of a relativistic world.(Fiene, p.7) They believed that the individual project their mental constructs, based on what they learn from their subjective experiences, onto the external world and reach a consensus of opinion, with others in their social group, that is labeled as reality.(Ibid) Fiene says �The immutable facts of this world are dictated by the physical environment, the social structure, and institutions of their specific society.�(pp.7-8) Feine says that �The social context into which one is born determines the content of one�s thoughts.�(p.8) She says �the mental constructs by which one interprets thoughts, feelings, and experiences are derived from one�s culture.�(p.8)
An individual�s position in the social world is initially inducted during the primary socialization process which occurs during childhood, when a child is influenced by parents and other caretakers. Fiene says �this perspective is further elaborated in symbolic interactionist theory which hypothesizes that the child�s concept of self is formed from the characteristics that are imputed to the child by significant others, usually family members�.(p.8) She goes on to say that �Reflecting the family�s position in the larger social structure, parents create a world for their children which contains the symbols and concepts reflecting that position.�(Ibid) Also the �family life style including values, beliefs, & use of language, is derived from the cultural store available to specific parents.�(Fiene, pp.8-9) The perceptions created during the primary socialization process may later be challenged, during the secondary socialization process, such as the educational process, or in adult life, but the person may erect tenacious defenses to preserve their view of reality.(Fiene,1988:9)
The term low status refers to both a low economic position, such as being defined as poor, and is also their ascribed social position relative to others in their social world. Status refers to the social position that a person holds in a given group or the social ranking of a group when compared with other groups in society. An individual�s status determines the rights and privileges to which that person is entitled. Ascribed status is acquired by the individual at birth, such as race, ethnic background, religion, wealth, and social standing are all acquired as a consequence of being born into a particular family. Clearly ascribed status is achieved because of who you are, rather than being based on what one does. Achieved status is the status acquired because of what you have done through your own individual efforts or choices in life. For example, the student who works hard and receives the necessary educational requirements to attain a desired position, which changes the persons status in society.(Cohen & Orbuch, p.8)
Fiene says that �social status is a factor in our personal interactions and is largely determined by local custom, attitudes, and values� and that it becomes significant when persons from different local groups come into interaction.(p.12) Fiene says that �women�s social positions have been solely associated with, first, their family or orientation and later, with their husbands� status position� and that �Women�s work (occupation) within the family has been ignored and their participation in the labor market obscured�.(p.13) Fiene (1990) says low status women �In their rural communities,... are seen by others as belonging to the lower class, which may be subdivided into the worthy or worthless poor depending on a family�s efforts to be self supporting.�(p.47) Fiene (1990) concluded that �three primary areas of social process emerged in defining the women�s construction of self.� They are (1) the expectations that direct the women�s role behavior in their families, (2) the morality that directs the conduct of their interpersonal interactions, and (3) the construction of their self-appraisals.(p.49) Fiene (1990) found that the Appalachian women in her study had traditional values in terms of family role performance, such as putting family responsibilities first, and placing high value on marriage, motherhood, and nonpaid work in the home.(p.51) Fiene (1990) says that in terms of expectations for social interactions, the women in her study placed a heavy reliance on an �ethic of egalitarianism and an expectation of personal treatment has been described as typical of Appalachians�... with people in Appalachian communities being accepted as equal.(p.52) The women had a positive view of self, based on the success they found in work, and living up to the expected family roles and a negative view of self based on incest and / or spouse abuse.(Fiene, 1990: 53-56)
Symbolic interactionism can help us understand social problems in America and in the world.(Charon, p.215) Charon says that symbolic interactionism offers a fresh approach to understanding problems like racial inequality, racial segregation, racial conflict, racism, sexism, and poverty in the United States.(p.215) People interaction with one another form society, communicating, role taking, and cooperating to make society work. Charon says the �United States has developed a segregated society- thus, in a basic sense it is not one society, but several�... based on our history of slavery, exploitation, racist institutions, legal and de facto segregation.(p.216) I believe that this segregation can be applied to those in Appalachia, who have been exploited and treated as a distinctive culture.
Charon gives six effects of segregation in a society, which I will use to apply to the problem of Appalachian poverty. The first is that �where interaction creates separate societies, each will develop its own culture, and individuals will be governed by different sets of rules and share a different perspective.�(p.216) Charon says that �without continuous interaction between the societies, actors in each will fail to communicate to and understand the other, and role taking and cooperation between them will be minimized.�(p.216) In terms of those in poverty this can lead to stereotypes and prejudice, and it can also lead to limited opportunities in mainstream society.
The second effect of segregation in American society is �if one of these separate societies has more power in the political arena of the nation, its representatives will be in the position to stigmatize the other - that is, its leaders will be able to define the other as less worthy; it will be able to define the other society as having a culture that is unacceptable and even threatening to the dominant culture.�(Charon, p.216) In terms of Appalachia one can see this by the fact that political power rests in the hands of the elite that control the institutions of Appalachia, and controls the media, which portrays low status Appalachians in a negative light.
The third effect of segregation is that �People in the dominant society through interaction develop a perspective - one that is useful for their understanding of reality,� which includes their definition of individuals in the other society and the reasons for their differences, as well as �justification for the inequality that exists between the other society and the dominant one.�(Charon, p.216) The dominant culture, in this case the American culture, defines those in subcultures and minority cultures as inferior, as lazy, as primitive savages, which gives justification for discrimination, and stereotyping. It also lets the dominant group blame problems on those who are different, or say other groups are inferior, such as not working hard enough, or not being as educated. While in reality those differences may be a result of discrimination that caused minority schools to be under funded, with a poorer quality education that limits those on the bottom from having an equal opportunity to advancement in a modern technology driven society that expects the highest educational and technical experience.
The fourth type is that segregation leads to a lack of interaction, which in turn leads to all people being unable to develop a shared culture, making the subculture appear even more different. Whether differences exist or not, the perceived differences between the cultures can cause misunderstandings, and can cause an exaggeration of problems. Charon says �To the extent that people in the dominant society see their own culture as right and true, others who are different will be defined as threats.�(Ibid) He basically means that those in control may feel threatened by those who are perceived to be different from them, which may cause them to discriminate in an attempt to hold down those in the subculture. The actions the dominant group take against the others are perceived as justifiable based on the negative portrayal of the inferior group, such as welfare reform, which is suppose to put able bodied persons to work. But the reforms are really an attack on the misperceived reality of those in poverty, who are portrayed as lazy free- loaders that are bilking the tax dollars of hard working middle class citizens. While in reality the negative perceptions of those in poverty are false, with most being in poverty due to lack of education, having a child while single, divorce, loss of job, medical reasons, disability and death of the principle wage earner.(In Our Own Words, p.6)
The fifth effect of segregation is that �destructive actions against others also seems justifiable if we can somehow make them into objects rather than people,� which makes �It easier for us to see those people similar to us as people, people who are different from us - who are part of societies separate from us - we do not understand and cannot easily take their roles.�(Charon, p.216-17) The lack of interaction, communication, and cooperation between the two groups makes it easier for the dominant group to devalue the problems and concerns of the others, such as to not value aid to help the poor. The sixth and final effect of segregation that Charon mentions is that it is �conflict rather than cooperation that characterizes segregated societies.� Because without interaction, such as communication, role taking, and recognizing the mutual identities of actors necessary for cooperative action, no shared culture is likely to develop, and different definitions will continue, which usually favors the dominant group to the harm of other groups.
The structural model says that differences between the poor and middle class families are due to situational adaptations to the conditions of poverty and the structure of the community in which the poor live, without blaming poverty on negative personal behaviors or an inability to make positive changes in their communities. The middle-class promote the self-sufficient nuclear family, while the lower class have a family system that has a high value placed on kinship ties to provide support. Since lower class families do not have the financial resources to have a self-sufficient nuclear family, they need the assistance of kin to help a household when resources are limited. Poor families can\\\'t afford child care or nursing homes and therefore out of necessity must have assistance from other kin to help with day care of their children and must keep their parents at home. James Branscome in his article, \\\"Annihilating the Hillbilly, says the stereotype of the hillbilly has lead the media to ignore the failures of all the institutions in Appalachia to meet the basic needs of the regions inhabitants. The media has for too long blamed the people for failure, when in reality it is the structure of society, basically meaning that the institutions, such as the local governments, schools, and businesses have not assisted those most in need. Local governments and local schools for too long have been corrupt institutions that gave jobs based on families and political friends, while leaving the poor out in the cold. The ARC has a record that includes a considerable amount of waste: pork-barrel projects of powerful politicians that served no useful purpose in Appalachia, lucrative consulting contracts awarded to former commission employees, and the inevitable waste of funneling tax money through several layers of Washington bureaucracy just so a little of it can trickle down to the area it was suppose to reach in the first place. The ARC has failed to meet the needs of the poor by giving most of the funds to the populated areas in Appalachia where the political and economic power existed, and neglected the areas with the highest poverty rates, providing no voice for the poor.
Helen M. Lewis, introduces her belief in the internal colonalization model in \\\"The Colony of Appalachia,\\\" article that shoes that the structure of society itself is to blame for poverty in Appalachia, and she recommends a radical restructuring of society with a redistribution of resources to the poor and powerless.(Lewis,p.4) The article \\\"The Colonialism Model: The Appalachia Case,\\\" by Lewis and Knipe shows that the area is controlled by outsiders, such as absentee coal company owners that don\\\'t pay much taxes to the counties in the area, which hurts the local education systems. Lewis cites Blauner\\\'s four components of colonization to show that Appalachia is a colony, such as that colonization begins with force and involuntary entry, with the coal companies coming in and taking advantage of the people with broad form deeds. The second component of Blauner\\\'s colonization is that the destruction of cultural values is greater than would be expected through cultural contact and acculturation, which can be showed by the school system that teaches the regions children different cultural values in an effort to bring the region into mainstream America with middle class values. The third part is that the colonized group is administered over by representatives of the dominant group, which can be seen by the fact that the local elite control the region, and get resources from the Federal government and administer the programs to the regions people. Mike Clark in his article, \\\"Education and Exploitation,\\\" shows that the local elite control the educational system in Appalachia and uses it to maintain the status quo, by promoting middle class values. The fourth and final component of Blauner\\\'s colonization is that of racism, due to the belief that a group is seen as inferior by a dominant group, and is exploited and controlled socially by the dominant group.
John Gaventa in his book POWER AND POWERLESSNESS: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley, shows how the three dimensions of power influence and control the poor people of Appalachia. Gavanta shows that the elite has the power, such as material control, political and institutional control, and even ideological control. The elite control the political resources, such as jobs, and have great influence, while the poor have no voice in the decision making processes of government. An example of this is that the majority of resources of the ARC has gone to the more urban areas of Appalachia, where the political power rests, while failing to adequately improve the lives of the poor in small distressed less politically powerful counties.
Gavanta shows that the elite controls the media, and all modes of communication, and can use their control to ignore issues, and to push issues that they support. He goes through each dimension, such as the first is pluralist, basically meaning that silence is taken to mean agreement, and that consensus is the views of the elite. The second dimension of power adds to the first to show how the institutions controlled by the elite can lead to the false consensus that is found in the first dimension of power. Those with the power can suppress the non-elite issues within the institutions. The third dimension of power adds to the first two by showing that the elite control the ideological power in society as well, and that in order to change society, the people must have hegemony. Gaventa shows that loss of power by the dominant group leads to rebellion. The subordinate group can rebel if the elite lose power or if the subordinate group gains power. The most successful rebellion would be to defeat the third dimension of power by having class consciousness to know what is in the best interest of the poor and working class, and not falling for the ideology of the elite. The people have to start with issues that need to be addressed, and work through level one, such as voting for those who favor the issues you support, and those representatives can work through level two, within the institutions to make the changes needed to solve the problems. But that is not an easy task because the elite control the political process, they have the money, and the control of the media, which lets them use the third dimension of power to attack, defeat or ignore the issues of the subordinate group, and would make it difficult to get the changes needed in society.
Gavanta shows that the elite control the land of the region, and can make non-issues out of important things like taxing of coal and absentee coal companies. He also shows that the third dimension of power was used to shape and promote a culture of capitalism, materialism, and consumption. The elite control the socialization process, such as the schools, to teach children modern American ways. He believes the culture of poverty model is wrong because the people are not fatalistic, but are dominated by the elites who are in control. He shows that isolation, such as that found in rural Appalachia makes it more likely that people will comply, or that living conditions caused by the coal industry, which creates control over the people, is the cause of dependency and domination. Also most of the elites live in urban areas, and therefore ignore the problems of the rural areas. The power of the elite and the powerlessness of the masses hurt the interests of local communities. Gavanta says that participation leads to development of communities. The poor do not get the media attention, which makes it difficult to get change. But by working together, such as through CDC\\\'s- Community Development Corporations, one can break the cycle of quiescence. It takes one step at a time to work their way up from small issues to larger more important ones, and every time one achieves success, that reduces the control of the elite. People must have the consciousness to see above the ideology of the dominant group, and participate in order to achieve positive change in society.
The Socialist Feminist Model is used by Virginia Rinaldo Seitz in her book, WOMEN, DEVELOPMENT, AND COMMUNITIES FOR EMPOWERMENT IN APPALACHIA, discusses how Patriarchy and Capitalism work together to marginalize women to the lower class within the political, economic, and social institutions that maintain the status quo. The socialist feminist perspective looks at the problems from the women�s point of view. She used a grounded theory to observe the problems from a first hand point of view to come up with loose hypothesis that show the women\\\'s lives as they really are, and not construct some narrow definition, letting the observer define the definitions and problems to be studied & solved.
I agree with her that the jobs that a majority of women hold in society are valued less than those in male-dominated professions, such as female professions like a women working in child care making far less than a male lawyer. Women are also paid less than men who have the same job, because women are valued less, as can be seen based on the fact that women only earn seventy percent of the salary of men. The capitalist system promotes making as much money as possible, and therefore have seen it to their advantage to hire women to work for lower wages, as can be seen in the low wage service sector jobs in Kentucky. The hiring of women instead of men to pay lower wages is promoted in a capitalist system, and it is not at odds with patriarchy because the women are usually working under men who have the control and power in the organization. Patriarchy has placed white men into the position of superiority in political, economic, and social institutions, to the disadvantage of women, and racial minorities. This traps many women in low status jobs that provide low wages and little or no benefits by limiting their opportunities, which creates a glass ceiling that prevents advancement from lower status jobs in society. Women have had to overcome the expectation of being a mother and housewife. The capitalist system places greater value on paid work. The ones with the most education get the best jobs and the highest status in society. Men have been successful in the primary labor market, getting good paying jobs that provide a middle class standard of living. Women on the other hand have mainly been stuck in the secondary labor market, with cheap service sector jobs with no benefits. Yet women are also expected to take care of the home and kids for no money and no benefits, which is a high burden for most poor women to face. Women find themselves as marginalized members of society because men have used patriarchy to put themselves at the top of the capitalist system, and giving them the power to control women. Women are making just enough to provide for their families, but not enough to provide economic independence from men. Reproduction and production are not separate, as can be seen in the fact that women that worked and had children wanted family leave as a solution to one problem of working parents, and now they are fighting for more day care provided by government and businesses. I agree that women from all groups need to realize that they are exploited by a male dominated society, and need to work together to fight for change. The fact is that women are able to change the way they view themselves by way of empowerment through grassroots organizations. Women can also find empowerment by furthering their education, getting job training, and going to college and even graduate school to become prepared for high status jobs. Women must go beyond practical needs of providing for their families to strategic needs of gaining political and economic power, to end patriarchal control of the institutions of society. One problem that women must overcome is the fact that some high status women accept the status quo and along with the current men in control of the institutions are unwilling to give up their power and status. The fact that there is only 54 women in the United States House of Represenatives and about 8% in the United States Senate, only a few in political appointed offices in Kentucky, and none from Appalachia shows that the reason poverty issues are not being addressed is because low status women have no voice in the political process that affect their day to day lives. Women need to gain more political power to give a voice to the problems of women and finally come up with real solutions that work. In order to create a world where inequality based on class, gender, and race is eliminated, along with poverty and violence, men and women both must work together to find empowerment from the existing power structure by working through the system and changing it from the ground up, one institution at a time.
Recommendations to help solve the problem of distressed communities in Appalachia are as follows: 1. The state of Kentucky should establish a special Distressed Communities Initiative to focus local, state, and federal resources on the development needs of its most severely distressed rural communities.
2. To provide a balanced development for places, people, and communities, the state needs to undertake a bottom-up Comprehensive Development Strategy that integrates economic growth through job creation and physical infrastructure with a larger development strategy that promotes the vital role of human and social capital development.
3.Public officials need to be committed to partnerships, relationships, and vision to re-establish a Community Based Strategic Development Process that can coordinate action by government, development organizations, higher education and other institutions to achieve community defined goals.
4. To more effectively coordinate the process of strategic planning and comprehensive development for eastern Kentucky, the legislature should establish a permanent Kentucky Appalachian Regional Commission to recommend policy and monitor success toward regional strategic goals. (Eller,p.41-8)
5. The state should abolish the income tax on the poor, by increasing the amount of money a worker is allowed to earn without paying taxes up to the poverty level. Any loss in tax revenues can be made up by a 0.005% tax on businesses in Appalachia with more than 50 workers.
6. The ARC, Federal, State, and local government should provide child care facilities in rural areas that is needed to allow women to work. The availability of cheap, and easily assessable child support would avoid the current situation where so many mothers are unable to find affordable, or local child care to meet their individual needs. Appalachian residents need more than just access to affordable health care, but also need quality health care. The ARC needs to increase the availability of regional diabetes health care delivery, to provide on site specialized pediatric diabetes care to children living in Appalachian Kentucky, because approximately 80 percent of all diabetic kids in Kentucky, live in eastern Kentucky. There is also a need for a senior health care management system, to improve the existing management information system and to improve the delivery of health care services to the regions elderly, including diagnostic assessment and case management.
7. The Federal government must set up a National Child Support Tracking System to collect child support and prevent the current situation where a person can avoid paying child support by going to another county or state. By creating a national tracking and collection system the dead beat parent would have no where to avoid paying child support in the United States.
8. The institutions that provide assistance to the poor should collaborate, and inform all eligible persons about various programs to help the poor. For example they should inform all those in poverty of job training and education program�s, and let them know that Federal, State, and nonprofit organizations offer free money to pay for higher education, such as community college or University education. They should also inform divorced and single mothers that there is free legal assistance available to help them collect child support from the non-custodial parent. Likewise women should be informed of programs that can help them in cases of domestic violence.
9. A public transportation system needs to be developed in distressed rural communities, to provide access to jobs.
10. The Appalachia Regional Commission should establish its primary headquarters in the Appalachian Region, and not in Washington, DC to make the organization a part of the Appalachian community, to provide better services, and a more proactive relationship with the people and businesses in the region. They must do a better job informing and helping the poor, and local governments to receive needed moneys in a nonpolitical way to better meet the needs of the regions people.
11. More funds need to go to dropout prevention programs to reduce those that drop out and are unable to compete in the job market.
12. The ARC, Federal, and state governments must provide more funding for industrial site renovation and reuse, water line extension, and more telecommunications. This must be done so that Appalachian communities will have the physical infrastructure necessary for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life.
13. There is a need for increased funding to assist in local development capacity building, and leadership institutes, which will help the people of Appalachia to have the vision and capacity to mobilize and work together for sustained economic progress and improvement of their communities. Local communities need to develop their own Appalachian based organizations to designed to meet the specific needs of the community, and the ARC should provide assistance in establishing such organizations.
14. The Appalachian people need access to financial and technical resources to help build dynamic and self sustaining local economies, which means the ARC, Federal, state, and local governments must fund programs to provide, entrepreneurial education, increase value added wood products by funding wood technology centers that offer innovative combination of technology assistance, education, training, and business incubator services to promote emerging wood products companies. They should also provide export trade training to increase this long neglected business sector in Appalachia.
Four choices about helping communities through economic development. The first choice is to help existing industry in the community to expand and create new jobs. Proponents say that existing industry is a valuable resource that can be built upon. The second choice is to recruit outside industry to move into the community. Proponents of this approach say that outside corporations, with their resources and experience, are the fastest and best way to create new jobs. The third choice is to help local people to start businesses in the community. Those that support this approach say that such businesses will be more supportive of, and responsible to, the community. The fourth choice is providing human services, such as education, housing, health care, child care, and transportation. Supporters of this approach say that human-services programs build a strong environment for economic growth and create jobs of their own, but in any case would improve the standard and quality of living. In reality one does not have to choice just one of these approaches, but can combine the best of all four, such as all four choices can find support in basic human self-interest to help end unemployment, and a desire to serve others and see them maximize their potential. Different communities may be best suited for different approaches, but all should promote choices number three and four because those two promotes support and responsibility to improve the community, while outside industry may only be interested in exploiting the people, and then moving on, such as the coal industry. The coal industry provides jobs, but most are owned by absentee owners that have no concern for the health of the local communities, not promoting education or human services programs that could improve the quality of life, and leave the people prepared for the future.
One expert on Appalachia says that if the ARC didn�t exist and those federal dollars did not get channeled to Kentucky, the state would have to accept responsibility for handling its own problems with its own resources. Kentucky has the natural resources that are being exploited at little profit to the state and local governments. It would not take much of an increase (maybe a 0.2% to 0.5%) in Kentucky�s severance tax to produce as much as the state received from the ARC in a given year. A reasonable severance tax or a reasonable tax on unmined minerals or some combination of both would produce many times that amount (Sprague, p.52).
Clearly federal programs like the ARC exist, and perpetuate themselves indefinitely, because of politicians that find it politically easier to let that far off and already hated federal government do what should be done at the state level. After over thirty years of ARC help, Appalachia is still poor. Appalachia�s coal fields have no diversified economy. Appalachia is still dependent on old industries that are in danger of extinction, such as the tobacco industry, and the coal industry. New technology industries need to be brought into the region to provide a economic structure that will be viable for decades to come.
With the start of the Reagan Presidency in 1981, the ARC came under heavy attack and came close to being done away with altogether. The ARC promised to do better, if only given a little more time and money. The ARC asked for five years to finish its work. Then they asked for another five years, and now another. Once a bureaucracy is created, it is virtually impossible to end. The people in the bureaucracy also develop a mind set that is focused on bureaucratic rules and regulations, and losing their focus on helping the poor. For too long the ARC has lost its way, focusing on bureaucracy, and on making political deals, instead of on the people they were suppose to help. Since, President Clinton gone into office, the ARC is no longer in threat of elimination by the executive, but is threatened by a Republican Congress that wants to reduce the role of the Federal government, and return power back to the states. Those that are critical of the ARC, think that the ARC�s roads program, which is the most successful of all its programs should be taken over by the Federal Transportation Department that already is doing most of the work anyway. They want Congress to phase out the rest of the commission�s activities, eliminating this unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and putting the responsibility to solve Appalachia�s problems back to the states. However, it is doubtful that the ARC will be ended in the near future. It has done a great job in building strong support in Congress for the program. Since the mid-1980�s it has become less political, and has avoided any partisan attacks on politicians. Plus the fact is that politicians love to get money for their local communities, and the ARC is more than happy to let local politicians take most of the credit for any money the communities receive to build political support in Washington. Its location in Washington, DC is due to the fact they want to focus on lobbying to continue their existence. They know that public relations is very important, and so they continue to provide reports on their successes and their agenda. They even promote those that are their strongest supporters, such as giving the powerful Republican Senator from the state of Virginia, John Warner an award for his service to Appalachia. Such efforts do appear to be working at reducing the attacks in Congress against the ARC. Having both Democratic and Republican support insures the ARC�s survival.
The resources that are presently available should go to the most distressed communities in Appalachia to promote job creation of the poor and unemployed of those communities, and should provide human services, such as better education, job training, housing, health care, child care, and transportation. This can increase the chances of those most in need of getting the skills and help needed to be lifted out of poverty and become independent, productive, and healthy members of society. ARC funds should not disproportionately favor physical capacity, such as urban areas, over human capacity and the building of social or civic infrastructure to improve the local communities should be a strategy to help end the poverty of severely distressed communities within the region.
The development strategies must listen to the voices of the poor, to hear their problems, and then use this information to make changes that will solve these problems and improve the quality of life for all in Appalachia.
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(Note: Research Paper written for Graduate Credit SOC 635, APRIL 28, 1999 by Brent M. Pergram, Master of Arts in General Sociology from Morehead State University, May 2000)