The problem is much deeper than that. The people are connected to their piece of land in a way I don't understand. I have known Kentuckians who would rather starve on their side hill than move 100 miles and live comfortably. Don't ask me to explain it. It might simply be the known versus the unknown.
BINGO.
I live on the Kentucky/Tennessee border (eastern). And I have teeth.
However, that mentality (people who would rather live in poverty than move away where there are opportunities) is prevelant here. Lots of folks here depend on govt. handouts from cradle to grave, generation after generation.
Both my grandpas were coal miners (one working in eastern Va. and one in Harlan County KY.) when the opportunity came up to work on the Manhatten Project. The govt. actually recruited coal miners, because they were clannish, isolated, didn’t have contact with others outside their local area. Many opted to stay in poverty.
Both my grandpas left the coal mines to work on the MP. It changed their, and their childrens’ live tremendously.
This is a good time to retell the story I read in a local newspaper here once. Seems a woman called police on her husband, after he caught her in bed with another man. They were looking for him because he took the woman’s false teeth and hid them from her. She was reported in the newspaper to be 23 years old I believe. (True story).