West Virginia’s natural gas counties have lost jobs to out-of-state workers and bled population

Mountain State Spotlight

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West Virginia’s natural gas counties have lost jobs to out-of-state workers and bled population

In between shifts at low-income jobs, West Virginians in natural gas country braved the late August heat and lined up at a New Martinsville church in Wetzel County to pick up canned food, frozen meat and back-to-school clothing. Some drove more than an hour to get there.  Grandparents with custody of their grandchildren, single mothers and people making barely above minimum wage waited their turn to choose from racks of clothes, and a team of ab…