Possum Philosophy: Coming to grips with reality of poverty in Appalachians

By ROBERT CAHILL/Columnist

Hello my fellow Appalachian residents. Guess what? An article carried in the Bristol Herald-Courier, the daily sister paper of the Smyth County News & Messenger, on Aug. 27 contained a report released by the government. It seems there is wonderful news from our distinguished United States Census Bureau. At least, the agency seemed to think so. According to the recent release (reported by the Associated Press), median incomes are up in Appalachian. Of course, with the exception of Virginia, Maryland and New York (yes, a very tiny bit of New York lies in Appalachia), the median income is far below the national average, which is just over $50,000. Appalachia’s median income hovers around $39,000.
Before we dance and shout at the good news let’s think a moment. The reason the entire region doesn’t have a much lower median income is the fact that the three states mentioned, Virginia, Maryland and New York, have what I would call “fairytale” income figures. I’d be willing to bet good money that Virginia’s median income shows to be much higher than it is in reality because of the incomes in that wonderland of government and huge salaries, Northern Virginia, or NoVa as they like to refer to themselves.
Wages (and prices) there are outrageous compared to our area here in the Southern Highlands. I bet the same could be said of the D.C./Baltimore section of Maryland. And is there a soul alive that would believe that New York City does not have the same effect on figures that include the state’s Appalachian section?
Another factor the Bureau was proud to announce was that the number of uninsured (health insurance in particular) fell from 13.7 million to 13.6 million. Yes, that is good news. Any time one of our fellow Appalachian citizens manages to gain a benefit of employment, such as health coverage, it is a good thing. However, looking at it in reality, that number amounts to fewer than 7,700 people per Appalachian state. And, I’d be willing to bet the majority of those are in the New York, Maryland and NoVa regions.
None of these figures recognize the reality of poverty throughout the Appalachian region. It brings to mind a quote from one of my favorite American authors/journalists, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. (He attributed the quote to Benjamin Disraeli, a British statesman and literary figure, although, according to Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.en, the quote may have come before Disraeli made it.) According to Twain, the quote reads, “There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics.” I feel statistics should have a footnote that reads, “especially government statistics.”
The overall report held bad news. In spite of a few improvements here and there, the number of Appalachian residents living in poverty increased to 13.3 percent. That amounted to more than 114,000 people. Not statistics but real people. And if I read the article correctly some of the other news is really not that great.
For instance, growth in the number of Appalachian residents with health insurance is a bit ingenuous. Several states, our neighbor Tennessee comes quickly to mind, have created state funded programs offering health insurance for children. This is great news. However, the figures in the report make no mention of this. At first glance, one could easily be led to believe that the increase came due to the number of Appalachians now working for employers that offer a health insurance benefit.
While many do, still many others do not. And sadly, in today’s struggling economy, many employers, faced with competition from foreign competitors, are making cuts where they can to stay in business. Regrettably, they often look at employee benefits, especially insurance coverage because of its costly nature. And remember, this report was for the year 2007. We are now two-thirds of the way through another year, and it has been one of the worst economically speaking in recent history. Losses of jobs, foreclosures and bankruptcies are typical headline material anymore. Just remember, if the rest of the country is in that bad a shape, Appalachia will be that much worse off.
I am an Appalachian native son and proud of it. It angers me to realize that we are the poster-children for poverty in the U.S. Perhaps the only area more poverty stricken are our Indian reservations, and many of them have used sources such as casino leases to at least make great improvements in their poverty conditions.
It angers me that we have so many native Appalachian residents living in poverty while so far in 2008, we, as a country, have spent $12 billion (yes, billion with a B) per month, that’s $144 billion per year, on improving the lot of the citizens of Iraq.
It also angers me that since this war began, according to Pentagon auditors, our country has paid Halliburton (in which V.P. Dick Cheney holds a large amount of stock) $1.4 billion in charges that were termed “unreasonable and unsupported” and another $3.2 billion that were called “questionable.” This to a company that recently moved its headquarters offshore to, I believe, Dubai to avoid what it considered unreasonable U.S. taxes.
So now we are full into the campaign for our next president. If this were NASCAR we would probably refer to it as the “Silly Season.” I just hope that whoever becomes our next President, be it Obama, McCain or J. Fred Muggs (oops, showing my age) that the winner will have the guts and determination to worry more about the U.S. citizens of Appalachia than about bettering Iraq (and the various oil corporations’ bottom lines).

A freelance journalist, Robert “Rocky” Cahill writes regularly for the News & Messenger. His Possum Philosophy column appears in each Saturday edition.