A Tale of Two Counties

By DON ROLLINS

Fifty-three thousand, six hundred and sixty-six dollars. That’s the gap in per median household income between Ohio’s highest earning county (Delaware at $87,908), and it’s next-to-last (Vinton at $34,242) — a disparity, stark and consequential.

Residents in Delaware County are in better health, live longer, experience less crime, have more formal education, start more businesses and are more likely to own a home.

In contrast, Vinton County - one of the state’s seven counties designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission as “distressed” - suffers more teenage pregnancies, higher instances of opiate abuse and deaths, lower high school graduation rates, poorer infrastructure, higher unemployment and more completed suicides.

Intrastate socioeconomic disparities like these are caused by a dizzying array of factors, historic and present. In the case of the haves up in Delaware and the have-nots down in Vinton, while the former has exponentially benefited from its proximity to Columbus and driving-distance to several manufacturing startups; Vinton’s coal, iron ore and lumber industries are mostly dead or dying, leaving an increasingly corporate farming base as the main source of employment.

Further complicating Vinton’s situation is that from state politicians’ point of view, Delaware is a much better economic and political investment. Consider: while Vinton’s local officials are mugging for the grand opening of a Dollar General, Delaware’s commissioners are adopting a plan to increase the county’s workforce by another 56,000 jobs by 2030, and raise the median family income to $115,000. Where to put the bulk of the funding is a political no-brainer.

As the midterms approach, Vinton’s place in the state’s Republican pecking order is being made even clearer. While both counties register staunchly Republican (Delaware last voted for a Democratic candidate in 1916, and Trump won Vinton by 45 points) Delaware has been a regular stopover for Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine. And Vinton proper has seen neither his hide nor hair.

In a case of extreme irony, Vinton’s relative lack of strategic political worth translates to a social service network grossly substandard to Delaware’s. Despite being an epicenter for Ohio’s illicit drug use and distribution, Vinton’s mental health and treatment options are few and almost entirely dependent on a fickle Medicare system. Even then, consumers and their families are routinely left to navigate Medicaid and each agency’s red tape. And most psychiatric services are via teleconference only.

These conditions are much less at play in Delaware, where a lower employment rate translates to more permanent, full-time jobs, many complete with medical benefits managed by the company’s HR office. And by comparison, Delaware is a more lucrative setting, having attracted private practitioners, psychiatrists and comprehensive treatment programs.

To be sure, the Delaware Counties of America are not Shangri Las, and have their portion of trouble. And life in places like Vinton County is not one long episode in hardship. But placed side-by-side, they are a study in the unparallelled, ongoing transfer of wealth that Trump inherited and only accelerated — reminders that quality of life in America can, more than ever, depend on something as simple as a zip code.

Postscript: I attended seminary in Delaware, and lived in a county adjacent to Vinton for nearly 30 years.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister and substance abuse counselor living in Pittsburgh, Pa. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2018

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