Surprise! Appalachian Fracking Boom Provides Nearly Zero Economic Benefit To Local Communities [View all]

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Appalachia's fracking boom has failed to deliver on promises of jobs and benefits to local economies, according to a new study. The study, published today by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit think tank, revealed that while economic output in Appalachian fracking counties grew by 60 percent from 2008-2019, the counties' share of the nation's personal income, jobs, and population levels all declined. The analysis concluded that about 90 percent of the wealth created from shale gas extraction leaves local communities.

The study looked at the 22 counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that produce more than 90 percent of the region's natural gas. In 2008, those counties were responsible for $2.46 of every $1,000 of national economic output. By 2019, the counties were generating $3.31 of every $1,000 generated nationally—an increase more than triple the rate of national growth. But over the same period, those counties' share of the nation's personal income fell by 6.3 percent, their share of jobs fell by 7.5 percent, and their share of the nation's population fell by 9.7 percent.

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"This report documents that many Marcellus and Utica region fracking gas counties typically have lost both population and jobs from 2008 to 2019," John Hanger, former Pennsylvania secretary of Environmental Protection and policy director to Governor Tom Wolf, said in a statement. "This report explodes in a fireball of numbers the claims that the gas industry would bring prosperity to Pennsylvania, Ohio or West Virginia. These are stubborn facts that indicate gas drilling has done the opposite in most of the top drilling counties."

Among the three states the report looked at, Pennsylvania's showed the best prosperity measures: GDP growth in Pennsylvanian fracking counties was two and a half times as high as the national level and four times as high as the state's. Personal income growth was slightly lower than the national average, but slightly better than the state average. But jobs growth in Pennsylvania's fracking counties was less than half the national rate and about the same as the state as a whole.

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https://www.dailyclimate.org/fracking-economics-2650431107/particle-1