Editing Harlan County, Kentucky (section)

==Economy==
For 100 years, the economy of Harlan County and other counties in eastern Kentucky was based on [[coal mining]]. The latter-twentieth-century decline of coal production and employment has led to widespread poverty and high unemployment.

Although coal mining began much earlier, the first shipment of coal by railroad from Harlan County occurred in 1911 and coal production boomed thereafter. Mining employment in Harlan County rose to 13,619 in 1950.<ref>"100 years of Coal Mining in Harlan County", ''Lexington Herald-Leader'', [http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/coal/article44121909.html] accessed February 15, 2017,</ref> The number of employed miners had declined to 764 by June 2016.<ref>Kentucky Quarterly Coal Report, April to June 2016, [http://energy.ky.gov/Coal%20Facts%20Library/Kentucky%20Quarterly%20Coal%20Report%20(Q2-2016).pdf] accessed February 15, 2017</ref> During the same period, the population of Harlan County declined from 71,000 to less than 28,000. Unemployment has been as high as 20 percent (September 1995) and has consistently been higher than the U.S. national average. Unemployment in December 2016 was 9.5 percent, compared to 4.8 percent in the nation as a whole.<ref>"The unemployment rate in Harlan County, Kentucky [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/KYHARL5URN] accessed February 15, 2017</ref>  Harlan County ranked in the highest 10 percent of all United States counties in the prevalence of poverty among its residents.<ref>"County Profile: Harlan County, Kentucky", {{cite web|url=http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/county_profiles/US/County_Report_Harlan_County_Kentucky.pdf|title=Archived copy|access-date=October 12, 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412214307/http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/county_profiles/US/County_Report_Harlan_County_Kentucky.pdf|archive-date=April 12, 2016}}, accessed February 15, 2017</ref>

Annual [[Per capita personal income in the United States|per capita personal income]] in Harlan County was $27,425 in 2014 compared to a national average of $48,112.<ref>"Per Capita Personal Income in Harlan County, Kentucky" [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCPI21095/downloaddata] accessed February 15, 2017,</ref>

By 2016, more than half of the county's income came from transfers from the Federal government such as Social Security, Medicare and food stamps.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Porter |first1=Eduardo |title=Where Government is a Dirty Word but it Checks Pay the Bills |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/business/economy/harlan-county-republican-welfare.html |access-date=December 22, 2018 |newspaper=New York Times|date=December 21, 2018 }}</ref>

As of 2018 new jobs are being located in the county as Teleworks USA has opened a hub in the city of Harlan. This has provided over 200 new jobs as of April 2018 <ref>[https://www.harlandaily.com/2018/04/17/additional-employers-considering-teleworks/ Harlan Daily Enterprise (17 April 2018)]</ref>
SEKRI, located in the Blair community near the city of Cumberland, also announced expansions and added an additional 100 jobs in March 2018.<ref>[https://www.harlandaily.com/2018/05/15/county-announces-job-fair/ Harlan Daily Enterprise (May 15, 2018)]</ref>