Poverty has always been an issue in this region.

But recent reports say the loss of manufacturing jobs...something that has plagued all of the industrial midwest...is making a difficult situation in Southeast Ohio even worse.

Poverty in most of our surrounding counties in Appalachian Ohio recently has been at 20% or higher.

And plant closings are a reason why.

But Charlotte Keim, President of the Marietta Chamber of Commerce, says there's more to it than just the industrial decline.

"The number of jobs here has never been high," Keim says. "People have always left the area to get higher-paying jobs. Certainly, the loss of manufacturing jobs has hurt, but that's not the major factor of whay we're poor in these counties."

Keim notes education is also a factor, and an official of the Buckeye Hills-Hocking Valley Regional Development District says economic globalization, that is, the moving of jobs to other countries, has also had an effect. But Keim also points to new types of industry...that employ dozens, instead of hundreds or thousands.

"They're cleaner, they're high-paying," she says. "They're the jobs of the future. That's what we're struggling with; to make the transition from blue-collar to more white-collar work."

Part of the answer, she says, lies in people re-training themselves to meet the needs of those new employers.

"The study the Port Authority did says there are hundreds of jobs out there coming out in the next decade," Keim says. "We need workers to fill those jobs and many of them are good jobs."

Buckeye Hills Development Specialist Bret Allphin also notes people who are working are what is known as underemployed...that is, they're now working at jobs which pay less than the jobs they once had.