, Columnist
Coal Jobs Are About to Take Another Hit
Despite President Trump’s promises, coal consumption has continued to plummet.
Pennsylvania’s coal country
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In 1923 there were 862,536 coal miners in the U.S., about 2% of the country’s total workforce. These days, their ranks are much thinner. As the Washington Post uncharitably pointed out in 2017, more people now work at Arby’s than in the U.S. coal mining industry.
This did not stop Donald Trump from making the revival of coal mining a major plank of his presidential campaign, and a focus of his efforts after he took office. And sure enough, the number of coal mining jobs did stop falling in 2017.