THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SERIES: THE STATE OF THE SOUTH
Part One of Three
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
We forget how far the South has progressed.
Heading into World War II, the richest Southern state was poorer than the poorest state outside the region.
The Southern economy was marked by ``bone-numbing work, tenant farming and rampant child labor. . . ,'' says a new report, ``The State of the South.'' It was published last month by MDC Inc., a 29-year-old nonprofit research firm that heeded William Faulkner's words: ``Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. . . .''
``Education,'' says the MDC report, ``was nothing but a cost, a burden on dog-tired taxpayers.'' Job training, the report adds, ``amounted simply to teaching workers to show up at the job site on Monday and follow instructions.''
At midcentury, the South's wealth, such as it was, still came from coal, oil, gas, cotton and tobacco. Many a heart was broken as the region's poorest and best-educated sought jobs outside the South, in this nation's greatest migration ever.
Even headed into the '70s, the South's per-capita personal income was 20 percent below the national average.
Then the Southern miracle began, and the flow of humanity reversed from out to in.
``The demise of Jim Crow and an upsurge of public and private investment,'' says the MDC report, ``brought about a decline in poverty, especially dramatic in the 1970s.''
By 1994, the South's per-capita personal income had closed to within 10 person(?) of the national average. Two Southern states exceeded the average in per-capita income: Virginia ranked 13th and Florida 20th. Still, next highest was Georgia, down in 30th place, and on the bottom were Arkansas, 49th, and Mississippi, dependably last.
In the South, the Atlantic states have fared best economically, though even here reminders of the bad old days are never far away. Within a stone's throw of Suffolk City Hall are neighborhoods lacking sewer service, where residents use outhouses. In much of Southside Virginia, a job offering minimum wage is said to pay ``standard wage'' and may be filled quickly.
Still, 8.1 million jobs were created in the Southeast from 1980 to 1993, many paying well. National growth accounted for most, but far from all, of the jobs. Southerners did many things right, says the MDC report. ``They expanded airports and widened roads, enriched schools, diminished racial discrimination and created favorable climates for business.'' Air-conditioning helped, too.
In an epilogue, the report sums up the route to future Southern prosperity in three words: ``education, education, education.'' There isn't any other route, short of discovering oil everywhere.
Low-wage jobs for uneducated workers - once the norm for the South - are heading overseas. That's not all bad: No state ever rode to prosperity on a nag named Low Wage.
Educated and trained workers find jobs that pay well. On average in the Southeast in 1993, high-school dropouts earned $16,700; high-school graduates, $21,400; workers with one to three years of college, $26,000; and college graduates $39,800.
When Virginia Gov. George F. Allen attempted to pare higher-education funds last year in order to cut taxes, three former governors and a host of concerned business leaders said stop. The cuts were blocked, and fortunately the trend now is toward more money for higher education, with low tuition increases. Any other route, the MDC report makes clear, would take the South backward to an economic time it would rather not revisit.
KEYWORDS: EDUCATION by CNB