What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia

by Elizabeth Catte

Letcher County congressional representative Hal Rogers, the former Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, believes the prison will transform the area’s economy. But there are fifteen prisons within a one-hundred-mile radius and local economies have not been transformed. Local labor fills the lowest paid positions, offering starting salaries of just $16,000 to $24,000 a year. Transferred employees with seniority take the better compensated roles, but in anticipation of their next transfer, they are reluctant to purchase homes or put down roots in the community. In some rural prison communities, only 10 to 20 percent of the workers, who all have to pass stringent background and credit checks, are local. Most of the counties that house prisons remain among the poorest parts of the state.