Full Title: Appalachia’s Natural Gas Counties: Contributing more to the U.S. economy and getting less in return
Author(s): Sean O'Leary
Publisher(s): Ohio River Valley Institute
Publication Date: February 8, 2021
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
A new Ohio River Valley Institute report titled, “Appalachia’s Natural Gas Counties: Contributing more to the U.S. economy and getting less in return” quantifies the decade-long failure of the natural gas boom in the Marcellus and Utica fields to deliver growth in jobs, income, and population to the 22 Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia counties that produce more than 90% of the region’s natural gas.
Contrary to the predictions of the oil and natural gas industry, which a decade ago published economic impact studies saying the expected boom in natural gas production would give rise to over 450,000 new jobs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show that jobs in the 22 counties crept up by a paltry 1.6% while nationally the number of jobs grew by 9.9%.
It should not have been this way. Natural gas production in the region substantially exceeded the projections contained in the industry studies. And economic output in the 22 counties grew by 60%, more than three times the rate of output growth nationally. But little of the income generated by that growth entered local economies. Between 2008 and 2019, as the counties’ contribution to the nation’s economy grew from $2.46 per thousand dollars of output to $3.33, their piece of the national economic pie got smaller.