WaPo: These striking numbers show just how fast we’re switching off coal

[Hortensis]

24. Very satisfying, Pampango.

"There is no such thing as clean coal."

Poor Appalachia. Those horrible mine jobs were among the best paid, such as they were. Last year's budget included funds to help in the transition, as did the year before's.

The plan, called POWER Plus and is part of the President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2016 Budget, provides more than $55 million in funding for job training, job creation, economic diversification, and other economic efforts in communities that have experienced layoffs due to the declining coal industry. According to the White House, that funding is “unprecedented” and will go toward improving the economic security of coal miners and their families, who have “helped keep the lights on in this nation for generations.”

But 90% is the individual, of course, plus a lack of tethering responsibilities. I remember when logging jobs left the northwest for the south. A friend of a friend was a county social worker who was very frustrated because some ex-loggers preferred welfare where they'd always lived to retraining for new jobs that required them to adopt new self identities and perhaps move away. In addition, some were semiliterate at best (use it or lose it), severely limiting their opportunities.