The bottom line is that America’s oil industry is one of the last big business that produces wealth (real wealth as defined by Adam Smith) and as such it has several orders of magnitude, of greater influence upon the American’ economy then its overall employment numbers would indicate (for better or for worse).
Adam Smith had this all explained and worked out in his masterpiece “The Wealth of Nations”, published (strangely) in 1776.
It is not really producing wealth if the derivatives per barrel of oil exceeds many times the value of the barrel of oil ... when it was at its high price.
More vapor ‘wealth’ was created than actual wealth form profits.