Opinion: U.S. educational mismatch leaves American manufacturers unable to fill 'millions of critical jobs'

A shortage of trained mechanics means auto owners 
will pay more for repairs. (Ford photo)

Moving the manufacturing of any product back to the U.S. is an expensive and iffy gamble that can take years to bring into fruition. For many companies, the idea of reshoring labor-intensive industries isn't even on the table because the nation doesn't have enough skilled trade workers to staff factory floors.

Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley "pointed out on a podcast last week that he can’t find enough skilled mechanics to run his auto plants. Specifically, Ford can’t fill 5,000 mechanic jobs that pay $120,000 a year," writes The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Farley told Monica Langley of the "Office Hours" podcast. "We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and tradesmen.”

For decades, American youth have been influenced to attend college rather than trade schools through government-sponsored financial support and cultural influences that push college degrees as a prerequisite for success, even when a trade profession might be a better fit. "This has created a skills mismatch in the labor market," the board adds. "Unemployment among young college grads is increasing, while employers struggle to hire skilled manufacturing workers, technicians and contractors."

When graduate numbers are compared, the extreme shortage of skilled workers becomes clear. "Only 114,000 Americans in their 20s completed vocational programs during the first 10 months of last year, compared to 1.24 million who graduated from four-year colleges and 405,000 who received advanced degrees," the board writes.

A lack of skilled workers eventually costs consumers more money. "An American whose F-150 truck breaks down will still have to pay more at the repair shop owing to the mechanic shortage," the board explains. "Steering every high school student toward college is doing tangible harm to the labor market — and the young."

If Americans are desperate for manufacturing jobs, why are so many factory jobs vacant?

Reshoring American manufacturing could take time
and big money. (Photo by Brice Cooper, Unsplash)

Despite the Trump administration's full press effort to revive American manufacturing, it's unclear if Americans want factory jobs. "American manufacturers say they are struggling to fill the jobs they already have," reports Greg Rosalsky of NPR's Planet Money. "According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are nearly half a million open manufacturing jobs right now."

Although a tight labor market explains some of the labor shortage, it's also a product of economic and educational circumstances. Rosalsky explains, "Manufacturers can't fill these jobs overnight because they require workers to have particular skills. And it's not just skills needed to work on assembly lines. . . . Manufacturers also employ people to do research and development, engineering, design, finance. . ."

Politicians typically tout factory work because it can "provide good jobs and career ladders for people without a college education," Rosalsky writes. "However, many manufacturing jobs these days actually require college degrees. . . That said. . . half of the open manufacturing jobs don't require a bachelor's degree. And manufacturers say they are also struggling to fill those."

A fair question manufacturers may need to revisit: Do they pay enough? Higher wages might "convince workers to invest in acquiring coveted skills and enter the manufacturing workforce," Rosalsky adds. "But the higher pay that Americans demand to work in manufacturing is one of the big reasons that many manufacturers left America in the first place."

Oren Cass, the chief economist and founder of American Compass, a conservative think tank, "believes that tariffs can help even the playing field with foreign competitors," Rosalsky reports. "And he stresses that one of the keys to reshoring manufacturing — while maintaining well-paying manufacturing jobs — is higher productivity."

In late April, Trump "issued an executive order aimed at 'preparing Americans for high-paying skilled trade jobs of the future,'" Rosalsky writes. 

Some colleges offer a 3-year bachelor's degrees to address student expenses and lower enrollment numbers

Colleges are piloting 3-year degree programs in
several states. (Adobe Stock photo)

Amid decreasing enrollment and increasing student costs, some colleges are offering three-year degrees as a solution. "The programs, which also are being tried at some private schools, would require 90 credits instead of the traditional 120 for a bachelor's degree and wouldn't require summer classes or studying over breaks. In some cases, the degrees would be designed to fit industry needs," reports Elaine S. Povich of Stateline. "Proponents of the three-year degree programs say they save students money and set them on a faster track to their working life. But detractors, including some faculty, say they shortchange students."

Utah is one state where the board of higher education approved the 3-year degree. "Various areas of study would be tied to specific industry needs, with fewer electives required," Povich explains. "These degrees are broader than two-year associate degrees but narrower than a full four-year bachelor's."

Geoff Landward, commissioner of the Utah System of Higher Education, told Povich, "We told the institutions to start working on them now and developing the curriculum. We want them to find industry partners that would be willing to hire people with bachelor's degrees of this type. . . . If we are partnering with industry and they help us develop it, I don't think it cheapens the degree. I think it creates a very specific degree."

The new three-year degree programs requiring fewer credits would still need national accreditation.

Changing social views on the importance of a college degree are some of the reasons colleges are getting creative. "A Pew Research Center survey found only 1 in 4 American adults said it is extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree to get a good-paying job," Povich reports. "More than a dozen public and private universities are participating in a pilot collaboration called the College-in-3 Exchange to begin considering how they could offer three-year programs." 

To get more teachers, some states try a new mode of training them: apprenticeships, to earn while they learn

Lina Horton earned a bachelor’s degree without spending a dime
on tuition. (Photo by William DeShazer, The Washington Post)

Using apprenticeships to train workers began in the Middle Ages, but what is old can be made new again; states are using the model to train new teachers, reports Moriah Balingit of The Washington Post. Balingit met with a once aspiring educator, Lina Horton, who gave up her dream of teaching because of the cost of college and the need for a paycheck. "Horton is part of a grand experiment to see what happens when the apprenticeship model — used to train generations of plumbers, electricians and carpenters — is applied to teaching, allowing trainees to earn money while they learn their craft and earn their credentials. In exchange, many of the programs require graduates to commit to a certain number of years of service in high-needs schools."

The country's severe teacher shortage is worst in rural and poorer places, "forcing some schools to pare down classes, hire unqualified adults or put students in self-guided online courses," Balingit notes. "Teachers matter more for student achievement than any other aspect of schooling and can influence whether a child graduates high school, attends college and earns more as an adult. Interest in teaching is plummeting; a decline chalked up to low pay and deteriorating work conditions. . . . . But the popularity of the apprenticeship programs suggests there is an untapped talent pool: people who have the desire and the heart — but not the financial means — to become a teacher. . . . Teaching apprenticeships are getting a major boost from the Labor Department, which last year began offering them federal certification, a distinction that gives them access to millions in job-training funds. Over the last 17 months, programs in 16 states have been certified, including some poised to take on hundreds of trainees. . . . While debates rage over transgender student rights and the teaching of race and U.S. history, teacher apprenticeships are a rare education policy initiative that have bipartisan support."

The college-based apprenticeships, which lead to a degree, also have the added benefit of helping schools diversify their teaching staff. "By intentionally recruiting local candidates, districts have been able to build teaching candidate pools that better reflect the demographics of the community," Balingit adds. "They have also had success recruiting from the ranks of teacher assistants, who are more diverse than teachers. Tabitha Grossman of the National Center for Teacher Residencies said removing financial barriers has been key in recruiting more teachers of color."

Community-college enrollments have dropped by one-third; red tape and lack of advisers discourage those who enroll

Santos Enrique Camara quit community college and now works
in food service. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson, The Associated Press)

Community colleges are important for rural areas because they offer a more accessible path to a degree, both in terms of distance and money. But they're in trouble.

"Even though community colleges are far cheaper than four-year schools —published tuition and fees last year averaged $3,860, versus $39,400 at private and $10,940 at public four-year universities, with many states making community college free and President Joe Biden proposing free community college nationwide — consumers are abandoning them in droves," reports Jon Marcus for The Hechinger Report, which covers education.

For some students, enrolling in a community college can be a difficult, confusing transition that often ends in failure. "When Santos Enrique Camara arrived at Shoreline Community College in Washington state to study audio engineering, he quickly felt lost." Camara told Marcus, "It's like a weird maze. You need help with your classes and financial aid? Well, here, take a number, run from office to office, and see if you can figure it out."

Marcus reports, "Advocates for community colleges defend them as the underdogs of America's higher education system, left to serve the students who need the most support but without the money required. Critics contend that this has become an excuse for poor success rates that are only getting worse and for the kind of faceless bureaucracies that ultimately prompted Camara, who had finished high school with a 4.0 grade-point average, to drop out after two semesters; he now works in a restaurant and plays in two bands." Camara told Marcus, "I seriously tried. I gave it my all. But you're sort of screwed from the get-go."

The future doesn't looks good. "Although the enrollment drop-off sped up during the Covid-19 pandemic, it started long before then. The number of students at community colleges has fallen 37 percent since 2010, or by nearly 2.6 million, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center," Marcus reports. "With scant advising, many community-college students spend time and money on courses that won't transfer or that they don't need. Though most intend to move on to get bachelor's degrees, only a small fraction succeed; fewer than half earn any kind of a credential. Even if they do, a new survey finds that most employers don't believe they're ready for the workforce."

"The reckoning is here," Davis Jenkins, senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University, told Marcus. "When we talk about transfer students, I just want to cry. And the sad thing is, they blame themselves." Marcus adds, "Even if they had enough advisers, students like these often wouldn't know the right questions to ask, said Joseph Fuller, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School." Fuller told Marcus, "They do have ambition, but they're worried about discussing it with anybody for fear they're going to be told it's unrealistic or a dumb idea. And that just makes you want to cry. . . .The lack of resources inside community colleges is a legitimate complaint. But a number of community colleges do extraordinarily well. So it's not impossible."

But the 'maze' is reported by many students. David Hodges, 25, is another example, Marcus writes, "He enrolled at Essex County College in New Jersey to move beyond the odd jobs he'd been working since high school, including seasonal gigs at Amazon and FedEx. But he was stymied by red tape. . . . Hodges said he called and visited the school to try to get information about enrolling but kept being told that he needed his mother's tax information to get financial aid. . . . Finally, the college told him he needed to take remedial courses in writing and math, for which he paid $1,000 out of his own pocket. . . . Hodges, too, soon dropped out."

Jenkins told Marcus, "Community colleges don't treat adults well. They don't treat part-time students well, who are predominantly adults. . . . What community colleges need to do, he said, is ''focus on students’ motivation, and help them plan and make sure their programs — the content and the delivery — enable very busy students in a relatively short amount of time and at a low cost to get out with a degree."

USDA launches guide to rural workforce loan and grant programs

The Agriculture Department 's Rural Development branch has issued a resource guide to help rural community leaders, lawmakers and business owners train, recruit and expand the rural workforce. The guide outlines grant and loan programs and services available through USDA and other federal agencies for creating jobs, training workers, expanding educational opportunities, and providing technical assistance. It also has examples of how organizations and communities have used such programs locally.

The programs are organized by four types: workforce development planning; infrastructure and equipment financing; industry and employer engagement, entrepreneurship and local business development; and education, training and apprenticeship. Click here to access the guide.

Applications open for paid USDA summer internships for high school and up, virtual and in-person

Applications are now open for U.S. Department of Agriculture summer internships through the federal Pathways Program. The program offers a wide range of paid internships for students in high school through the graduate level with on-the-job experience, mentorship, and training tailored to each student's interests and needs.

The internships span a wide range of occupations, including veterinary science, engineering, natural resources management, finance and more. Positions are open in almost every state, and some are virtual. 

The deadline for summer 2021 internship applications is Nov. 16. Click here for more information.

Trump's USDA shows pattern of making decisions based on politics, not data, say economists, scientists and former staff

Many big policy changes in the Trump administration's Agriculture Department "have been marred by missing pieces of critical data, assertions challenged by outside experts or other struggles to demonstrate the reasons for major shifts in federal food and farm policy," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico. "The trend has raised questions from critics about how USDA leaders are making decisions with huge implications for struggling farmers, food stamp recipients and workers in dangerous meatpacking jobs, among other aspects of America’s food system." Many lawmakers, agricultural research experts and former USDA staff feel that Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his top deputies are making political decisions first and gathering relevant facts later.

For example, when the USDA announced a July 2019 proposal to narrow eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the formal analysis of the rule did not include a critical measurement: how many low-income children would lose automatic access to free school meals. "Lawmakers hounded USDA officials for months to track down those figures, which turned out to be twice as high as USDA initially indicated," McCrimmon reports.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle protested last year when Perdue suddenly announced plans to shutter a Forest Service program that provides vocational training to disadvantaged rural teens and young adults. The administration planned to transfer the Job Corps program to the Labor Department, close nine centers and outsource 16 to state governments or private companies. About 1,100 employees were slated to lose their jobs. The official regulatory notice said that the centers underperformed, were inefficient and didn't achieve long-term positive outcomes, but provided no data to support that, McCrimmon reports.

"The Trump administration has also asserted in budget documents that the USDA-run sites on average were more costly and less effective than other centers managed by the Labor Department — even though their own performance data shows that most of the Forest Service centers scored in the top 25 percent of all job training centers, meaning they significantly outperformed the other sites," McCrimmon reports. Perdue ultimately backed off the plan after pressure from lawmakers concerned about their constituents losing jobs.

Agricultural economists have criticized the calculations the USDA used to structure its trade bailout program for farmers, McCrimmon reports. Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee lambasted the program's payment structure in a November report, saying that the calculations lacked transparency, and that it disproportionately helped Southern farmers, wealthy farms and foreign companies while paying Midwestern soybean and corn farmers less.

"In June of last year, the department’s internal watchdog launched an investigation into whether officials used flawed data to support a new rule allowing meatpackers to accelerate their pork processing lines to high speeds that could endanger plant workers," McCrimmon reports.

Rebecca Boehm, an economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told McCrimmon that the administration has deliberately made data take a backseat in policymaking: "It’s obviously political, and special interests come into it. But bottom line is the public loses, farmers lose."

Study finds that offering big tax breaks to lure businesses may not help broader economy, as local officials often say

Though state and local governments in the United States spend more than $30 billion every year to keep or attract businesses, a new study shows that the deals that offer the biggest incentives don't clearly help the broader regional economy, "The research calls into question the common practice of using narrow, firm-specific tax breaks to attract businesses and boost employment," Richard Rubin reports for The Wall Street Journal.

The researchers studied incentive deals from 2000 to 2017 that were worth at least $5 million. Counties that used incentives typically saw jobs in the targeted industry increase by about 1,500, but the researchers found no impact on countywide employment in other industries. That contradicts common rhetoric local officials often use to sell the public on the necessity of such incentives. "The motivation is often about the indirect jobs that are created," University of Texas government professor Nathan Jensen told Rubin. "You cannot make these decisions based on indirect jobs."

Moreover, the study found that "low-income areas often provide bigger incentives than more affluent areas, perhaps because they are seen as less attractive places to do business without such offers. Counties with average annual wages below $40,000 pay over $400,000 per job, while those with wages over $100,000 pay less than $100,000, according to the study," Rubin reports. "The researchers also found that larger, more profitable companies are more likely to get richer incentives."

The broad implications suggested by the research: "state and local governments should avoid tax breaks that pay out over many years and instead consider programs that invest more directly in job training and infrastructure that help businesses and have broader public benefits," Rubin reports.

Biden says coal miners could easily learn computer coding, but retraining programs for them can be problematic

Biden speaks in Exeter, N.H., Dec. 30. (AP photo by Charles Krupa)

On Dec. 30, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said at a rally that coal miners could easily learn computer coding, Alexandra Kelley reports for The Hill. "Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well," Biden said in Derry, N.H. "Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!" (Note to the former vice president and Pennsylvania native: Coal miners don't throw coal into furnaces.)

The remark fit Biden's proposal to reduce Americans' reliance on fossil fuels while helping coal-mining communities develop other sources of income. Retraining programs for miners have received bipartisan support, but they have a "questionable record of success," Kelley reports. "Some displaced coal workers do transition into other fields or industries, but critics say that the jobs that former coal workers usually find tend to pay only $12 to $15 per hour as opposed to the approximate $75,000 a year salary that coal workers had while working in the mines."

Some careers for which miners retrain have few jobs in their local areas, and some miners say they don't retrain because they hope the coal industry will rebound. "Some miners, especially older ones, find it too daunting to learn a complicated new trade later in life," Kelley reports.

For instance, in a Blackjewel miners' Facebook group, one miner commented on Biden's remark: "Yeah learn to program my azz. I’ll soon be 60 years old and can’t find a job. Even told at one grocery store the position was filled by a younger person." Other comments were overwhelmingly negative, reflecting general offense and a sense that Biden was disrespecting or undervaluing the contributions of coal miners. But "the need for a solution for coal miners continues," Kelley writes. "Although the industry added 4,500 jobs from 2016 to 2018, U.S. coal production decreased by 10 percent in 2019 and jobs are at risk."

UPDATE, Jan. 6: Another Democratic candidate, millionaire businessman Andrew Yang, posted a YouTube video saying that turning coal miners into coders is not the answer to automation, because of the growing advance of artificial intelligence.

Apply by Nov. 30 for Poynter Institute's 2020 Leadership Academy for Women in Media; scholarships available

The Poynter Institute is now accepting applications for its sixth annual Leadership Academy for Women in Media, which will take place at its campus in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2020. Applications are due by Nov. 30.

Women at any stage of their journalism career who have leadership potential or responsibilities are encouraged to apply. A 2018 Poynter survey of graduates from the first three years found that 81 percent got promoted or have more job responsibilities; 83% make more money, with half making substantially more money; and 76% have a clearer vision of what's important in their career.

Attendees can choose from three sessions: Winter (Feb. 23-28), Spring (April 19-24) or Fall (Oct. 4-9). Each session will accept up to 30 participants. Cost is $1,095 and includes lunches, snacks and some dinners; some need-based tuition scholarships and travel support are available through funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Blackjewel miners get $3.7 million grant to go back to school

Laid-off coal miners who worked for Blackjewel LLC in southeastern Kentucky have been awarded a $3.7 million grant from the federal government to help them train for new jobs.

The money comes from the Department of Labor as a National Dislocated Worker Grant, given to the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. "This money will help laid-off miners and their spouses train in a new field. Many of the miners are choosing expedited short term training in jobs such as machinists, linemen, and truckers," Emily Bennett reports for WYMT-TV in eastern Kentucky.

EKCEP Executive Director Jeff Whitehead said many miners are unsure of themselves, but will flourish and do well in second careers if given the opportunity. The program is for any laid-off coal miner, not just the Blackjewel miners. More than 450 Blackjewel miners have enrolled for training with the program and 100 of them have already gone back to school, Bennett reports.

When Blackjewel abruptly declared bankruptcy in July, about 1,800 workers at its mines in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming were left unpaid. On July 29, laid-off Blackjewel miners blocked railroad tracks to keep the company from transporting coal out until it had paid the miners. After nearly two months, the protest ended last week as the last of the miners left the tracks. They still haven't been paid, but the miners said they needed to move on to new jobs or job training, WYMT reports.

A Blackjewel attorney has proposed in West Virginia bankruptcy court a deal that could provide the company with about $5.5 million that it would use to pay its former Kentucky employees. "While the deal has yet to be finalized, officials with the U.S. Department of Labor said during Wednesday’s court hearing that they expect to come to an agreement with Blackjewel as early as next week," Will Wright reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Though the miners are no longer blocking the tracks, the coal train still hasn't moved out because of a court order.

Bipartisan pressure forces Trump administration to drop plans to revamp or shutter rural Job Corps centers

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has dropped plans to shutter parts of Job Corps, a Forest Service program that provides vocational training to disadvantaged rural teens and young adults.

"The decision came after weeks of heavy pressure from lawmakers from Montana to Kentucky, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)," Lisa Rein reports for The Washington Post. (Here's a bipartisan letter to USDA and the Department of Labor, which would have taken control of the program.) "The Forest Service had planned to begin layoffs of 1,110 employees by September, believed to be the largest number of cuts to the federal workforce in a decade."

The 25 Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers, which operate in rural areas, enroll more than 3,000 students a year, but the program was criticized for low performance, inefficiency and high costs. The Labor Department planned to close nine centers and hand off 16 others to state governments or private companies. It would have continued operating urban Job Corps programs. The nine rural centers slated for closure were in Arkansas, Kentucky, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

"But the planned closures quickly ran headlong into political reality: Most were in Republican strongholds President Trump won in 2016," Rein reports. "While the president and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill have put a high premium on downsizing the federal government, lawmakers facing re-election campaigns next year were loath to sacrifice economic drivers back home, however small."

Forest Service giving rural Job Corps program to Labor Dept., which will close nine centers and outsource 16

The Trump administration announced last week that it will shutter a U.S. Forest Service program that provides vocational training to disadvantaged rural teens and young adults. About 1,100 employees will lose their jobs starting in September, in what is believed to be the largest single layoff of federal employees in a decade, Lisa Rein reports for The Washington Post.

"The Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers enroll more than 3,000 students a year in rural America," Rein writes. "The soon-to-close centers — in Montana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Virginia, Washington state, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oregon — include hundreds of jobs in some of President Trump’s political strongholds. In Congress, members of both parties objected to the plan."

The Labor Department will assume control of the program, and plans to close nine centers and hand over 16 to state governments or private companies. It will continue operating urban Job Corps programs, Rein reports.

Federal officials said the revamp was necessary because many of the rural programs are inefficient, low-performing, and costly. "Job Corps has been a troubled program, with student safety issues, staff turnover and, in some centers, a poor record of job placement," Rein reports.

Officials: Job Corps not helping create job-ready workers

Though it has some notable success stories, a program started in 1964 to train mostly rural and urban high-school students and dropouts to learn trades is "incapable of meeting the demands of a national shortage of job-ready workers" according to those familiar with it, Glenn Thrush reports for The New York Times.

Labor secretaries since the Reagan era have been promising to reform Job Corps, which has a $1.7 billion annual budget. The Labor Department's inspector general said in April that "Job Corps could not demonstrate beneficial job training outcomes," and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta told Thrush the program needs "fundamental reform."

About 50,000 students enroll every year, and each student costs taxpayers $15,000 to $45,000. President Trump attempted to cut funding for the program but was unsuccessful, partially because of the program's broad bipartisan support.

"Progressives see it as an enduring commitment to the poor rooted in a golden age of liberalism. Conservative lawmakers support Job Corps because it encourages low-income young people to work hard," Thrush writes. "The website for the trade association of Job Corps contractors is plastered with pictures of smiling politicians from both parties. The centerpiece is a snapshot of Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, hugging a Job Corps student in Morganfield — one of seven centers in his home state. During the Obama administration, budget officials floated the idea of shuttering a handful of the lowest-performing centers, according to former aides. The idea ran into immediate resistance from members of Congress in both parties. In the end, officials succeeded in closing only three, two of them underutilized rural forestry service sites in Arkansas and Oklahoma."

Southwestern Pennsylvania coal miners reject retraining, wait for Trump's coal comeback

 Appalachia has lost more than 33,000 mining jobs since 2011, prompting the creation of numerous Obama-era job retraining classes for coal miners. Such programs are doing well in states like West Virginia and Kentucky where locals widely acknowledge that there's little hope for a comeback. But in southern Pennsylvania, more ample coal reserves and a marginally better mining job market have led miners to largely reject retraining efforts.

"What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce," Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters. "The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity."

The brief upsurge in mining jobs in Pennsylvania is mainly related to a rise in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, which is used to produce steel. "Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia," Volcovici reports. Most U.S. coal is mined to burn for electricity, and that is the sector of the industry that Trump has taken actions to help.

Some displaced miners are turning to a surprising new enterprise: beekeeping. West Virginia resident Mark Lilly will begin training former coal miners to keep bees starting in January throught the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective, funded by a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission. "Lilly sees beekeeping as a way for longtime Appalachians to preserve their connection to the land and to earn extra money during lean times. Some might even be able to support themselves and their families on income from bees," Marlene Cimons reports for EcoWatch. "The Appalachian Beekeeping Collective plans to process, market and distribute honey. The ultimate goal is to bring millions of dollars into the region and provide income for hundreds of Appalachians. The new beekeepers will receive hives either for free or at a reduced price, depending on their income."

Appalachian agency says E. Ky. needs 30,000 more jobs; regional group aims to help create some

The Appalachian Regional Commission annual report, released Aug. 3, outlined a bleak view of Eastern Kentucky as leaders in the region gathered to focus on its future. The report said 37 of Kentucky's 54 counties in the ARC region are economically distressed, meaning that they rank in the bottom 10 percent of the 3,113 counties in the U.S. in metrics such as poverty and unemployment. The counties, not all of them in the Appalachian coalfield, stand out in red on the latest edition of ARC's map of county economic status, newly released.

Appalachian Regional Commission annual map (click on it to enlarge)

Appalachian Kentucky has been struggling for decades, but "one reason for the region’s continued economic malaise is the loss of about 10,000 coal jobs since early 2011," Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "That’s more than half the coal jobs that existed that year. Those losses have spread through the economy to hurt other employers and local government revenue."

The ARC report estimates that Eastern Kentucky would need to add 30,000 jobs to stabilize the local economy. Estep highlighted it in his coverage of the non-partisan economic development agency Shaping Our Appalachian Region's annual summit Aug. 4 in Pikeville. Republican U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, who has long represented most of Appalachian Kentucky, told Estep, "It's a huge challenge." Rogers and then-Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, set up SOAR in 2013 to find ways to diversify the economy in response to coal's swoon. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin co-chairs SOAR with Rogers.

Some ideas proposed at the annual summit were aimed at "training workers; creating and expanding small businesses; improving health in a region beset by high rates of diabetes, heart disease and other problems; boosting industrial employment; creating a local-foods movement; and establishing the state’s Appalachian region as a tourism destination," Estep reports. Here are some examples:

ore here: http://www.kentucky.com/article165563837.html#storylink=cpy

• A huge greenhouse on a reclaimed surface mine in Pike County. AppHarvest head Jonathan Webb says his goal is to produce the first tomato crop in the fall of 2018. The state has approved up to $2.5 million in incentives for the project, would could create 140 jobs.
• More than 1,000 jobs have been created since 2015 through Teleworks USA, an initiative that lets people answer customer service calls from home or a local hub.
• KentuckyWired, a project to build a high-speed internet network across Kentucky. "The project will provide an access point to broadband in each county, but other providers will have to extend the service to individual homes and businesses — what's called “last mile” service," Estep reports. The project is a key effort for SOAR, but has run into delays, such as agreements to use utility poles.
  
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/article165563837.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/article165563837.html#storylink=cp

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/article165563837.html#story

Lack of education, jobs, training keep too many rural youth not in work or school

The number of "disconnected" rural youth—meaning they are not in school or the workforce—has overtaken the number of similar youth in urban areas, Tim Henderson reports for Stateline. Measure of America, a project of the nonprofit Social Science Research Council, said 4.9 million youth between 16 and 24 are disconnected, with 20 percent in rural areas and 24 percent in the South.

One example of the rise in rural areas is Worcester County, Maryland, which has a disconnected youth rate of 25 percent, higher than Baltimore's 20 percent, Henderson notes.  "About 20 percent of young people in extremely rural areas—those like Worcester County with no cities larger than 10,000 people—were jobless and not in school, on average, over a five-year period, from 2010 to 2014, Measure of America said in a March report. That’s much higher than the rate for counties in urban centers (about 14 percent) or for suburban counties (12 percent)."

The number of disconnected rural youth has been on the rise in recent years, Henderson notes. It was 11 percent in rural areas in 2000, compared to 15 percent in urban areas, "but since 2013, the rural rate has been at least 3 percentage points higher than the urban rate. In 2016, 17 percent of young people in rural areas were disconnected, compared to 13 percent in urban areas." (Stateline graphic: Disconnected youth)

Henderson notes that "the shift is due mostly to a decline in high school enrollment in rural areas after 2011 and an increase in college enrollment in urban areas over the same period. Rural employment also is a large part of the issue, as jobs in many parts of the country have failed to recover from the recession while urban jobs have bounced back and climbed from pre-recession peaks." Rural isolation, which can lead to a lack of good jobs and training centers, is another problem.

The Measure for America report said: “These vulnerable young people are cut off from the people, institutions, and experiences that would otherwise help them develop the knowledge, skills, maturity, and sense of purpose required to live rewarding lives as adults. And the negative effects of youth disconnection ricochet across the economy, the social sector, the criminal justice system, and the political landscape, affecting us all.”

CBS uses Appalachian media-arts-education center as example of effect of Trump's proposed cuts

A music student at Appalshop (CBS photo)

In response to President Trump's proposed budget cuts CBS News's "Sunday Morning" looked at how one rural community would be hurt. The same story could be reported in many other communities.

Letcher County, Kentucky, which has been hurt by the loss of coal jobs, is also the home of Appalshop, a non-profit media, arts, and education center that relies largely on funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which would all be de-funded under Trump's proposed budget.

Letcher County (Wikipedia map)

"Applashop was a seed that grew out of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s," reports CBS. "Programs were established in impoverished areas to encourage young people to develop new skills in the arts, like filmmaking. The film workshop has grown into a diverse and thriving arts center, where picks and shovels have been replaced by picks and bows."

"With grants from the NEA, Appalshop filmmakers have turned the local culture into indelible images," reports CBS. Its success has given Whitesburg renovated buildings and a 15,000-watt radio station.

Some people in the arts favor Trump's cuts. David Marcus, artistic director for a theater company in Brooklyn, N.Y., told CBS, “For 20,000 years human beings have been making art. That streak is not going to end in 2018 if the NEA goes away.” But he acknowledged that might not happen in Letcher County.

Immigrant farmers stand to lose loans and funds for training, under budget proposed by Trump

Yakima County, Washington (Wikipedia map)

President Trump's proposed budget cuts would hurt agriculture communities that rely on immigrants, like Yakima County, Washington, where Hispanics or Latinos make up 48.3 percent of the population, compared to 44.3 percent of whites, Bryce Oates reports for the Daily Yonder. In 1990, only 23.9 percent of Yakima County's population was Latino or Hispanic.

According to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture census, in 2012, Yakima County "produced $1.65 billion of agricultural products," Oates writes. Yakima County leads the nation in in apple acreage, revenue from hops production and sweet cherry production, and is seventh in revenue from milk production and 15th in wine grape acreage.

Yakima County's Center for Latino Farmers, which only serves U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, provides resources and training for local farmers, Oates reports. It's part of Rural Community Development Resources and "is highly dependent upon federal grants and partnerships to serve the non-farming population." The center is a certified Department of Treasury Community Development Financial Institution and its staff and technical assistance resources are supported by the Economic Development Administration. A portion of the loan funding they provide to entrepreneurs comes from the Small Business Administration. Oates notes that all of these federal programs have been slated to be cut or eliminated by Trump.

Maria Giedra, outreach specialist for the center, told Oates, "The people we assist are looking for capital, loans for land and also for operating capital. We help them find loans from the Farm Services Agency, help them understand what program is best for them." The center also "serves farmers with education, technical assistance, and support for enrolling in USDA programs. They hold meetings and training on crop production, record-keeping, post-harvest handling of farm outputs, and regulations that affect their farms."