Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone asked out-of-work coal miners why they supported Donald Trump. The answer was simple. Hillary Clinton literally promised that if she were elected, there would be “a lot of coal miners out of work.” Donald Trump promised to reopen the coal mines and get miners back to work. But that’s unlikely to happen. A Brief History of Coal US coal production dropped 10.3 percent year over year in 2015. It’s now below 900 million short tons, the lowest annual production level since 1986. EIA Coal Report In late 2015 and early 2016, Peabody Energy , Arch Coal , Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal all filed for bankruptcy. In a statement announcing the bankruptcy, Peabody blamed “a dramatic drop in the price of metallurgical coal, weakness in the Chinese economy, overproduction of domestic shale gas, and ongoing regulatory challenges” for the “unprecedented” industry downturn in […]