Scott Tiller, a coal miner of 31 years, operates a continuous miner machine in a coal mine roughly 40-inches-high, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015, in Welch, W.Va. Most of the job losses happened long before coal’s latest downturn. Mechanization began slashing the number of workers needed to mine coal in the 1960s, and then a collapse in the U.S. steel industry in 1980s further decimated miners’ ranks. (AP Photo/David Goldman)