By Lewis Loflin
Since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in the 1960s, the coal fields and adjacent counties of southern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, upper eastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia—what I define as core Appalachia—have continued to face significant economic challenges. Despite decades of government programs, progress has been limited, and by 2014, conditions in many of these areas had not improved substantially—and in some cases, had worsened. In this article, I present three perspectives spanning from 1990 to 2014 to explore why poverty persists in core Appalachia, particularly in the Tri-Cities region where I reside, which includes Bristol, Virginia, a part of this core area.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) often reports that poverty in its defined region has decreased over time, citing a rate of 17.1% in 2014 compared to 31% in 1960. However, I argue that this statistic is misleading because the ARC’s definition of Appalachia includes 423 counties across 13 states, encompassing urban centers like Knoxville and Chattanooga that are far more prosperous than the coal-dependent regions. In core Appalachia, poverty rates are much higher—often averaging 25–30% in counties like Martin, Kentucky (30.5% in 2008), or McDowell, West Virginia (37.6% in 2014). This discrepancy highlights the need to focus on the most economically distressed areas rather than diluting the data with wealthier regions.
I believe that the people of core Appalachia must take greater control of their futures. This involves addressing systemic issues such as local political corruption and rethinking the structure of government assistance programs, which sometimes provide minimal aid that may discourage self-reliance rather than fostering sustainable change. A critical step is redefining Appalachia to prioritize the coal fields and adjacent counties, ensuring resources are directed where they are most needed.
In 1990, a San Francisco-based travel agency, Global Exchange, planned a nine-day tour through Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, marketed as a glimpse into the "Third World in America." Priced at $500, the tour, scheduled for June 17–25, aimed to showcase impoverished families, declining coal mining towns, and streams littered with discarded appliances and other debris—conditions all too common in core Appalachia.
This initiative drew sharp criticism from tourism officials in the region. John Brown, West Virginia’s Commissioner of Commerce, remarked, "I suggest that those folks could save a lot of money and get a great dose of third-world reality simply by walking through the barrio in Los Angeles." Similarly, Don Wick, director of information for the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development, expressed concern that the tour would reinforce negative stereotypes about the region. Cindy Ford, a spokeswoman for the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, added, "If you're looking for poverty and environmental problems, yes, you can find them in our three states. But I don’t think we have any more problems than any other state" [Source: Associated Press, March 31, 1990].
Global Exchange, known for organizing awareness tours to countries like Haiti and Brazil, defended the initiative as its first domestic trip. Tour coordinator Laurie Adams explained, "What brings a place alive and what makes it so interesting are the people who live there and the problems they're confronting." She noted that the agency’s clients—typically students, community volunteers, and government officials—were interested in meeting individuals working to address social and environmental challenges.
Officials pointed to cities like Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga as examples of the "sophisticated and prosperous" South, but I find this argument misleading. The ARC’s definition of Appalachia, which includes these cities, distorts the reality of poverty in core Appalachia. For instance, Knoxville, with a population of nearly 195,000 and a median household income of $44,000 as of 2023, is far more urban and economically stable than rural areas like Martin County, Kentucky, where the median income was $22,760 in 2008. Knoxville benefits from institutions like the University of Tennessee and has a poverty rate of 19%, compared to 30.5% in Martin County. I argue that including such areas in Appalachia dilutes the focus on the coal fields and adjacent counties—southern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, upper eastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia—where economic distress is far more severe. The ARC’s broad definition—encompassing 423 counties across 13 states, including most of Pennsylvania, parts of New York, and one-third of Ohio—often seems driven by political considerations rather than a genuine focus on the core challenges of Appalachia, skewing poverty statistics and resource allocation.
In 2006, the National Catholic Reporter published an article by Lucy Fuchs, a professor emerita of education, reflecting on her experiences with the Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) in East Kentucky, a region at the heart of core Appalachia. Her observations highlight the challenges of addressing poverty through charity and government assistance, a theme I find resonates with the broader experience in the coal fields—and one I’ve witnessed firsthand in the Tri-Cities region.
Fuchs noted that the term "welfare" had been replaced by the phrase "draw," meaning to receive government assistance, and that many locals openly discussed this support without embarrassment. However, she also encountered resistance to new rules imposing time limits on assistance, with some healthy individuals expressing a desire to be on disability to avoid working altogether.
Her husband worked with a CAP housing crew tasked with repairing homes for low-income families. These families were expected to contribute "sweat equity"—labor toward the repairs—and repay material costs over time. However, Fuchs observed that these expectations were often unmet, either due to practical limitations (e.g., an 80-year-old resident unable to contribute labor) or leniency from the work crew. I’ve encountered similar issues in my own work in core Appalachia. For example, I’ve seen residents living in rotting homes who would rather spend $2,000 on a satellite TV dish than invest in basic repairs. I’ve also offered cash jobs to some individuals, only to have them refuse, citing a lack of motivation or interest in working, even for immediate payment. This pattern of prioritizing short-term comforts over long-term improvement is something I’ve observed repeatedly, and I believe it reflects the broader economic despair in the region, where the decline of the coal industry has left few opportunities for sustainable employment.
Fuchs herself assisted with GED and literacy programs in Magoffin County, where over 60% of adults lacked a high school education—a stark indicator of the educational challenges in core Appalachia, where the poverty rate was 33.4% in 2014. While her classes focused on education, other CAP initiatives leaned toward direct handouts, such as distributing donated commodities. Volunteers also provided support to the elderly, including transportation to medical appointments and social outings. However, Fuchs was troubled by a lack of family involvement, noting that some elderly residents had children living nearby who did not assist, possibly relying on volunteers instead.
I’ve seen similar patterns of dependency in public housing projects in the Tri-Cities region, particularly among white residents, who form the majority in these areas. When I worked for a "Rent to Own" company, I visited government-subsidized apartments that were often in deplorable conditions—roach-infested and filthy—despite being provided at no or low cost. I was struck by how many residents refused to take basic steps to clean or maintain their homes, even when the resources were available. This lack of initiative, in my view, is tied to the same systemic issues Fuchs describes: a cycle of dependency fostered by government programs that provide minimal support without encouraging self-reliance, compounded by the economic isolation of core Appalachia.
Fuchs also highlighted tensions between CAP’s volunteers, often well-educated Catholics from outside the region, and its local employees, who were predominantly fundamentalist Protestants. Over time, CAP had shifted from a volunteer-driven charity to a more business-like operation, with paid employees outnumbering volunteers. While this provided stable jobs in an area with limited employment opportunities, Fuchs questioned whether such structures truly addressed the root causes of poverty.
After a year with CAP, Fuchs concluded that the organization was unlikely to transform lives and might even perpetuate dependence. She argued that Kentucky needed better schools and more job opportunities rather than temporary aid. She described the region as the "Third World of the U.S.," noting that natural resources like coal were extracted for the benefit of outsiders, while locals received minimal government aid that seemed designed to maintain the status quo. Fuchs emphasized that lasting change would require the people of Kentucky to demand better for themselves.
I share Fuchs’ concern about the cycle of dependency fostered by some assistance programs, especially when resources are misallocated due to the ARC’s overly broad definition. In core Appalachia, where poverty rates are significantly higher than the ARC’s reported average, the need for targeted investment in education and jobs is even more pressing. In my view, the cultural and religious attitudes she describes—where many locals believe "God has a plan" and accept their circumstances without striving for change—can further hinder progress. Combined with the economic despair following the coal industry’s decline, these factors create a challenging environment for breaking the cycle of poverty in the coal fields.
In April 2008, Senator John McCain visited Inez, Kentucky, the site where President Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1964. Inez lies in Martin County, a quintessential part of core Appalachia with a 30.5% poverty rate in 2008. McCain acknowledged the government’s failure to fulfill Johnson’s promises, stating, "I wouldn’t be back here today if government had fulfilled the promises that Lyndon Johnson made 44 years ago. The moral of the story is—government isn’t always the answer...You’ve never wanted government to make your living for you. You just expect us to show a decent concern for your hard work and initiative, and do what we can...to help make sure you have opportunities to prosper from your labor" [Source: Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2008].
Martin County faced significant challenges at the time: 46% of adults lacked a high school diploma, the median household income was $22,760, and 30.5% of the population lived below the poverty line, according to 2008 census data. This stark contrast with areas like Knoxville, which the ARC also classifies as Appalachia, underscores the misallocation of resources I mentioned earlier. McCain proposed two main initiatives to address poverty in such areas. First, he suggested tax write-offs for companies providing high-speed internet access to low-income residents, with government-backed loans or low-interest bonds for areas where businesses wouldn’t offer such services. Second, to tackle health issues like diabetes and obesity, he proposed emphasizing "wellness and fitness," including a $5,000 refundable tax credit for families to purchase health insurance and recruiting professional athletes to promote nutrition in rural communities.
I find these proposals questionable for core Appalachia. In Bristol, Virginia, part of the core region, we’ve had high-speed internet for years through Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU), yet it hasn’t led to significant job growth. Instead, BVU accumulated $60 million in debt and saw $10 million in economic development grants fail to produce meaningful results [More on BVU]. The average cost of providing high-speed internet to residents here was $8,900 per household, and by 2014, there were no substantial economic improvements. If Knoxville, with its relatively robust economy, receives ARC funding for similar initiatives, I worry that the truly distressed areas like Martin County are left behind. Similarly, McCain’s health initiatives, while well-intentioned, seem disconnected from the realities of a region where many already rely on government healthcare programs and face poverty rates far higher than the ARC’s reported average. What are the underlying issues with these approaches, and how can we better address the needs of core Appalachia?
Reflecting on these perspectives, I believe the persistence of poverty in core Appalachia stems from systemic issues that neither government handouts nor poorly targeted initiatives have resolved. The ARC’s overly broad definition exacerbates this problem by directing resources to areas like Knoxville, which do not face the same level of economic distress as the coal fields. This also skews poverty statistics: while the ARC reported a 17.1% poverty rate for its entire region in 2014, I estimate that in core Appalachia—counties like Martin, KY (30.5%), McDowell, WV (37.6%), and Buchanan, VA (26.5%)—the rate is closer to 25–30%, reflecting the true severity of economic challenges in these areas.
My experiences in the Tri-Cities region further illustrate the challenges of breaking this cycle. The lack of initiative I’ve observed—whether it’s refusing cash jobs, prioritizing satellite TV over home repairs, or neglecting government-subsidized housing—points to a deeper issue of dependency fostered by decades of economic decline and inadequate support systems. To explore this further, I turn to an analysis by Howard Baetjer Jr. in his article Does Welfare Diminish Poverty?, which cites M. Stanton Evans’ 1982 piece in Human Events, "Where Do All the Welfare Billions Go?"
Evans notes that social welfare spending in the U.S. increased dramatically from $77 billion in 1965 to $394 billion in 1978, a rise of $317 billion annually during the "Great Society" era. If this amount had been distributed directly to the poor—estimated at 25 million people in 1978—it could have provided each person with an annual grant of $12,680, equivalent to $52,000 for a family of four. In other words, this sum could have significantly raised the income of the poor. Yet, poverty levels remained largely unchanged during this period. Evans argues, "One has to wonder how it is possible to spend these hundreds of billions to alleviate poverty and still have the same number of poor people that we had, say, in 1968...It prompts the more suspicious among us to ask: What happened to the money?...[A] tremendous chunk of these domestic outlays goes to pay the salaries of people who work for and with the federal government—including well-paid civil servants and an array of contractors and ‘consultants,’ many of whom have gotten rich from housing programs, ‘poverty’ studies, energy research grants, and the like" [Source: The Freeman].
I agree with the sentiment echoed by Thomas Sowell, who describes the poor as a "gold mine" for the bureaucracy that administers these programs. In 2014, approximately 46.5 million Americans were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), reflecting the scale of ongoing dependence on government aid. This suggests that much of the funding intended to alleviate poverty may be absorbed by administrative costs and intermediaries rather than directly benefiting those in need, a problem compounded by the ARC’s misallocation of resources to less distressed areas outside core Appalachia.
In my view, the people of core Appalachia must demand more effective solutions—better education, sustainable job opportunities, and policies that empower communities rather than perpetuate dependency. A critical first step is redefining Appalachia to focus ARC funding on the coal fields and adjacent counties of southern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, upper eastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia. Only by prioritizing these areas can we address the true extent of poverty in the Tri-Cities region and beyond, ensuring resources reach the communities that need them most and fostering a culture of self-reliance to break the cycle of dependency I’ve observed firsthand.
I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for assisting in drafting and refining this article. The final content and perspective are my own.
