[Monthly Labor Review for December 1939]

UNEMPLOYMENT IN A DEPRESSED COAL-MINING AREA 1

By JOHN N. WEBB, Division of Research, Work Projects Administration Pronounced differences in the severity of unemployment are to be found within as well as between the major industrial areas of the country. In some of the more populous States deep pockets of unemployment exist and persist almost unnoted because of the small weight they have in determining State unemployment totals. Thus, the Unemployment Registration Census of 1937 showed that unemployment was one and one-half to more than two times as severe in the coal-producing counties of southern Illinois as it was in the State as a whole. When further inquiry shows that these "black spots" of unemployment are the result of economic dislocations peculiar to the locality, the unusually high rate of unemployment implies the existence of what may well be called a "problem" or "depressed" area."

Broadly speaking, a "depressed" area, as the term is here used, is one in which there is a high proportion of long-term unemployment caused by the persistent decline or the compete collapse of activity in the industries upon which the economic life of the community depends. The economic dislocations in a depressed area are of a much more permanent nature than those affecting the country at large; and it is this element of permanency that sets such an area apart in the general scene.

A DEPRESSED AREA IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS

A block of counties in southern Illinois where coal mining is the major industry provides a clear-cut example of a depressed area. The decline of industrial activity in these counties began well before 1929, and had, by 1939, reached the point where two-fifths to one-half of the available labor force was without private employment.

Three contiguous counties in southern Illinois-Franklin, Saline, and Williamson-containing the richest coal deposits in a State that ranks fourth in coal production for the country, were chosen for study of the social and economic aspects of a depressed area. The choice of these counties was, in part, dictated by the fact that coal mining has been the one major industry for a quarter of a century or more. Agriculture, a poor second in importance, seems almost a contradiction in an area where coal tipples, strip pits, slack piles, railroad siding, and washery sheds are the dominant elements in the landscape. In part, also, these counties were selected because they provided a range in the degree of economic dislocation from a critical, but by no means hopeless, situation in Franklin County to one of almost complete collapse in Williamson.

The peak year for employment in these counties was 1923; 36,000 workers were employed that year in 105 shipping mines. The year of greatest coal production, as distinct from the peak in employment, was 1926. Employment, however, dropped steadily from 1923 on. By 1937, the number of shipping mines had declined to 40, and 18,000 miners had been displaced. * * * In all, mine abandonment and technological advances in the surviving mines had reduced employment opportunities by about two-thirds-from 36,000 workers in 1923 to 12,500 in 1937.

Fourteen years of declining activity in the major industry of this area has left empty stores, dismantled mine sites, weed-covered railroad sidings, and crumbling smokestacks. Near the once prosperous mine properties are poverty-ridden settlements without sidewalks, street lights, sanitation, or paint to cover the weather-beaten boards of the dwellings. Even if agriculture the second industry of the region—could have been expanded profitably to absorb the displaced workers, it is doubtful if a group of men, almost literally "bred to mining" could have adapted themselves to so different a type of activity, which, among other things, requires capital from the beginning.

Migration seems to be the only solution possible for most of these jobless men. Many of the younger workers have already left, but migration is no easy matter for the older worker. Family responsibility, personal possessions, and a highly

1 This article is based upon an unemployment census taken in connection with a survey of the depressed coal-mining area of southern Illinois made by the Division of Research. WPA. For a preliminary report on this survey, see Work Projects Administration, Seven Depressed Coal Towns, by Malcolm Brown and John N. Webb, Washington, 1939.

2 For example, see FERA, Research Monograph I: Six Rural Problem Areas, Washington, 1935. See also, Great Britain, First Report of the Commissioner for the Special Areas, July 1935, p. 2.

specialized occupation tend to hold the displaced miner where he is. Bad as it is, the local situation is known; friends, the church, relief officials, the grocer, milkman, landlord, and so on, have been as helpful as possible. The risk of starting over again in a strange community seems too great as long as any hope remains that conditions will improve locally. And hope dies hard in an area not yet a generation removed from a period of marked prosperity.

NATURE OF THE SURVEY

The chain of events explaining the existence of a depressed area is difficult to trace even when a single industry is involved. Few of the residents are aware that the economic difficulties of their community are of a permanent nature until the situation becomes obviously hopeless. As a result, an account of the underlying causes must be assembled from many sources within and without the

area.

In the survey of the southern Illinois coal fields extensive use was made of newspaper files, mortgage foreclosures, real-estate transfers, production and court records, pay rolls, corporation accounts, and similar sources of year-by-year events. One essential type of information, however, could not be obtained from any existing source. The amount and the duration of unemployment among the coal miners at the time of the survey; and the personal characteristics, family composition, dependence upon public assistance, and allied data for the total population, Without this information, much of the discussion about the effects of economic dislocations on the resident population would rest on surmise.

One of the first steps taken in this survey, therefore, was a census of unemployment and population. Seven towns in the three counties were selected. The towns chosen were Herrin, Johnston City, and Bush in Williamson County; West Frankfort and Zeigler in Franklin County; and Eldorado and Carriers Mills in Saline County. A census of their inhabitants was begun in December 1938 and completed in March 1939. The results of that census are reported in this article. In order to bring out the aspects of unemployment that are characteristic of a depressed area, frequent comparison will be made between the figures obtained from the seven-town census and figures from three cities-Birmingham, Ala., Toledo, Ohio, and San Francisco, Calif.-having more nearly normal economic conditions wherein a comparable survey of unemployment was made at about the same time.3

TOTAL POPULATION

The population of the seven towns had either declined or remained almost stationary during the 9 years following the Federal census of 1930. Four of the seven towns had lost a total of 3,451 persons, and in the other 3 (Bush, Carrier Mills, and Eldorado) the increase totaled only 286 persons. The net loss in all seven towns was 8 percent over the 9-year period.

TABLE 1.-Population of 7 towns in southern Illinois coal fields, 1939

The measurable loss of population shown by a comparison of the figures above with the 1930 census does not, of course, report the total loss that occurred. Some natural increase of population took place during the 9-year period, and this too was lost. The significant point is not that the population of these stranded towns declined, but that it declined at a rate far below that of the decline in economic opportunity. As a result, these towns were overpopulated in terms of the ability of the area to support population.

3 See WPA Social Problem Pamphlet No. 4: Facts About Unemployment, Washington 1939.

Roughly, two out of five persons in the population of all of the towns except Bush (one out of three) were found to be workers, that is, they came within one of three categories-employed persons, unemployed persons actively seeking work, or persons normally employed but temporarily neither working nor seeking work.

For

Compared with the labor force of the three cities of Birmingham, Toledo, and San Francisco, in which a survey of unemployment was made at about the same time, the labor forces of the seven coal towns formed a distinctly smaller proportion of the total population. The difference, however, was largely explained_by a much smaller percentage of women in the labor supply of the coal town. example, in the seven towns, 18 percent of all women were workers, whereas in Birmingham the percentage was 31; in Toledo, 24; and in San Francisco it was 32 percent. The fact that the predominant industry, mining, offers practically no opportunity for the employment of women goes a long way toward explaining the small proportion of women in the labor supply.

EXTENT OF UNEMPLOYMENT

The staggering loss that the workers and the community suffer from unemployment in a depressed area can be seen from table 2. Over two-fifths of the labor force of the seven coal towns was unemployed at the time the census was taken. Large as it is, this figure does not tell the whole story. The census was taken during the peak months of seasonal activity in the mines. In addition, this figure does not report underemployment (divided time) which was particularly prevalent in the mines that were still operating. The labor force of the seven towns, and percentage of total unemployment as well as that for each sex, are shown in table 2.

TABLE 2.—Size of labor force and percent unemployed, by sex, in 7 towns in southern Illinois coal fields

Women, it was noted earlier, were found in the labor supply of the seven towns in smaller proportions than is the case in most urban centers. Nevertheless, women had a higher unemployment rate than men. About 40 percent of the men in the labor supply and 48 percent of the women were out of work.

Underemployment can be nearly as serious as complete lack of work. A worker with 1 or 2 days of employment a week cannot begin to meet his normal living expense, and he is likely to be ineligible for any form of public assistance as long as he has a job bringing in some income. In the coal mines of southern Illinois "divided time" is a very common practice of spreading what work does exist. In fact, this device has become so much a policy of the miners' union that it is frequently included in the working contract with the operators. Divided time not only spreads work but it also helps to cushion the first shock when technological changes reduce labor requirements.

The extensive practice of divided time in the seven towns is clearly shown by a comparison of the 22 percent of underemployment 5 there with 14 percent in Birmingham, and 12 percent in Toledo, and 11 percent in San Francisco.

4 An index of seasonal variation in coal tonnage produced in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties for the 15-year period 1922-37 shows that the peak of activity occurs between October and March, and the low point between April and August. Peak activity is regularly more than double the activity at the slack period. The census of the seven coal towns in these counties was started in December 1938 and completed in March 1939.

Since only 60 percent of the total labor was employed in private industry, the amount of underemploy. ment rises to 38 percent when computed on the basis of workers with jobs.

TABLE 3.-Percent of total labor supply employed less than 30 hours per week, Illinois coal towns compared with 3 cities elsewhere

7

The unemployed of the seven towns-42 percent of the labor force-fell readily into three easily distinguished groups. By far the largest group was employed on the works program; three out of five unemployed workers had such jobs.

The proportion of unemployed workers on the works program was unusually high in the seven towns, as compared with the percentages in the following statement for the three cities at the same time. For the country as a whole an estimated 20 to 25 percent of the unemployed had works program jobs at about the same time the figures for the southern Illinois coal towns and the three cities were secured. In contrast, the smallest percentage among the seven coal towns was 51 percent in West Frankfort, and the largest was 73 percent in Bush.

One of the more obvious reasons for the high proportion of unemployed workers on the works program is the low turn-over of the labor force in an area where the dominant industry is in a prolonged state of decline. In most industrial centers there is a continuous shift in the labor supply; at the same time that some of the workers are losing their jobs others are finding employment. As a result of this turn-over factor, there is usually a substantial portion of the unemployed who have been out of work only a short time and who have reasonable chances of returning to work in the near future.

Situations of this kind are the rule to which depressed areas are an exception. The extremely high proportion of employed workers on the works program in the seven coal towns is simply another indication of the depressed nature of the area in which they are located. The turn-over of workers is low; the hard core of unemployment is unduly large; and the normal activities of job seeking on the part of the unemployed have little chance of success.

Active job seekers who had neither private nor works program employment made up the second largest group among the unemployed in the seven towns. About one-quarter (26 percent) of the unemployed were in this group, approximately one-half the proportion that was found in Birmingham, Toledo, and San Francisco. In fact, the two situations were almost reversed; in the seven coal

As used here, this term includes the WPA, NYA, CCC, and other emergency work programs of the Federal Government. Of these, the WPA is by far the largest.

towns the proportion of the unemployed on the works program was more than double the proportion of active work seekers not on the program, whereas in the three cities the proportion of active work seekers was nearly double the proportion on the program. One reason for this marked contrast in groupings among the unemployed will be evident when data on duration of unemployment are presented."

The third group among the unemployed was made up of jobless workers who were temporarily out of the labor market. Some part of the labor force of every community is temporarily inactive. How large this part is at any time depends upon such factors as the rate of turn-over in employment, the seasonality of industry, and the general health of the work force.

In the seven coal towns about one-seventh of the unemployed were inactive at the time of the census. This is a distinctly smaller proportion than will be found in most communities. In the three cities frequently used as a basis for comparison in this report, inactive workers made up about one-quarter of the unemployed. To an important degree, the smaller proportion of inactive workers among the unemployed of the coal towns is related to the very large proportion of unemployed workers on the works program. Were it not that the works program provided jobs for so large a number of the unemployed, the proportion of inactive workers would undoubtedly have been much larger. The reasons for withdrawal from active participation in the labor market in the seven towns are shown in the following statement:

Total____

Believed no work available.
Temporarily ill or disabled.
Temporarily laid off..
Other reasons_

Percent of all inactive workers

Nearly half of the inactive unemployed were neither working nor looking for work during the week of the census because they were convinced that there were no jobs to be had. With the principal industry, mining, offering less and less in the way of job opportunities, many of the displaced miners turned to the works program as the only alternative to an enforced idleness in which there was not even any use to look for work. Miners, particularly the older ones, found themselves with a particular skill that was of no use any place except the mines. Even if alternative employment were available, the chances of their being acceptable to other industries were remote because of the large surplus of younger workers in the area.

Second in importance as a reason for workers becoming inactive in the seven towns was temporary illness or disability. This is a reason found in every community. In the three cities studied, temporary illness or injury was the most important reason for inactive_workers, accounting for as many as two-thirds in Birmingham, one-half in San Francisco, and one-third in Toledo.

The remaining reasons for inactive workers in the seven coal towns were largely industrial in nature. Some workers with jobs in private employment were not working during the census week because of machinery break-down, shortage of material, bad weather, etc. Likewise, some workers were on temporary lay-off and would return to their jobs shortly. A few workers with jobs in seasonal industries were waiting for the resumption of normal activity.

AGE AND UNEMPLOYMENT

The younger and the older workers suffer most from unemployment. The young lack experience, and in an overcrowded labor market many employers are reluctant to make the small investment required for training a new worker. The old, on the contrary, have experience but, in the judgment of many companies, experience does not compensate for a decline in physical vigor and, particularly with miners, for the cost of retraining. The older worker is the one worst hit by mechanization of mining, in which the substitution of mechanical for manual operations has made great strides. When men are replaced by machines some manual workers must be taught machine operation. Not only is there a general belief that the older worker is slow to learn "new tricks," but when employers do retrain they tend to prefer younger workers with some industrial experience. 7 See pp. 6-8.