Want more news about Virginia’s demographic trends? We’ve gathered all our demographic coverage together in one place.The town of Jarratt has just lost its major employer.Boar’s Head first shuttered its plant in Greensville County in July, following a listeria outbreak that has killed at least nine people and sickened at least 57 others in 18 states. Now, Boar’s Head has announced the plant will close indefinitely.Jarratt straddles the county line between Greensville County (in red) and Sussex County (to the northeast). The Boar’s Head plant is in Greensville County. Courtesy of David Benbennick and National Atlas. About 500 people are now out of work, in a part of the state where jobs are hard to come by, especially those that paid as well as those jobs at the meat plant did. One worker interviewed by The Washington Post said she was making $18 an hour. That works out to $37,440 a year in a county where the per-capita median income is $34,749 for men and $29,017 for women.The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have all now written essentially the same story: This is a hard blow for a small town. That’s undoubtedly true. I’m going to take a somewhat different approach: I’m going to put Jarratt in a demographic context. There’s never a good time to lose a major employer, even temporarily. The numbers I’m about to roll out will show why this is particularly difficult for Jarratt and the counties around it.I must warn that some of these numbers are not pretty ones. I don’t take any joy in sharing them, but perhaps they will help some in other parts of the state comprehend the degree of the problem here — and understand, yet again, how not all parts of Virginia have shared the state’s bounty. I will also try to correct some misimpressions that may have crept in along the way. In fact, let’s start there.Jarratt has not been in a year-long declineOne of the national media accounts described Jarratt as a “once-bustling railroad town.” It’s easy to read stories like those and come away with the impression that Jarratt is dead or dying. That’s not quite so. The town of Jarratt is bigger today than it’s ever been — population 652 in the most recent census. It’s not seeing go-go growth, but I don’t think we can call a place that gained 2.2% in population over the past decade dying.The plant itself is outside Jarratt in Greensville County, so let’s look there.Emporia became an independent city in 1967, so if we’re going to look at population changes in Greensville County going back before then, we have to take Emporia into account. In 1950, Greensville’s population peaked at 16,319 (with Emporia, then a town, as part of that). The last census counted Greensville at 11,391 and Emporia at 5,766, so a total of 17,157. That’s not much population growth from 1950 to 2020, but it’s a far different situation than the coal counties of Southwest Virginia or some of the tobacco counties of Southside that have lost population over that time. (Examples: Wise County peaked at 56,336 in 1950 and now is 36,130; Pittsylvania County peaked at 66,096 in 1950 and now is 60,501; Danville peaked at 53,056 in 1990 and now is 42,590.)That part of the state is losing population now, thoughHow Virginia’s population has changed from 2020 to 2023. Courtesy of Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia.In the 2020 census, virtually all of rural Virginia south of the James River lost population. For Greensville County, that was the first population decline since the 1980s. For Emporia, it was the first population decline since the 1970s.In the three years since that census, we’ve seen population trends change — and in some places change dramatically. The most important, simply by sheer size, have come in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, where the state’s two biggest metro areas are now losing population.There are now three regions, though, that stand out with the darkest red blotches for population declines on a percentage basis: the coal counties, a swath of counties running from the Blue Ridge to Pittsylvania, and then the cluster of Brunswick, Greensville and Sussex counties, along with Emporia.Those first two places make sense historically, but this is a new phenomenon for those last localities. Let’s put them in context.The population declines along the Interstate 95/Interstate 85 corridor south of Petersburg are now steeper than almost anywhere in VirginiaThe 2020 census found that the six most severe population declines, on a percentage basis, were all west of the Blue Ridge, and five of those were in Southwest Virginia — in descending order, Buchanan, Lee, Wise, Dickenson, Bath and Russell.From 2020 to 2023, five of the six counties with the most severe population declines were east of the Blue Ridge, and three of those were in these localities along I-95 and I-85:Buchanan County -5.7%Charles City County -5.1%Sussex County -5.1%Brunswick County -5.0%Henry County -4.7%Greensville County -4.6%We need to adjust our mental map of which parts of the state are suffering from population problems. What has caused this change?Post-pandemic migration has seen most rural areas gain new residentsThis map shows which localities have seen more people move in than move out since the last census. Note that localities gaining newcomers might still lose population overall because deaths might outnumber births and net in-migration. Data source: Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, the University of Virginia.The course of history has been changed by great migrations — American settlers pushing west through the 1800s, waves of immigrants from Europe to North America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the so-called “great migration” of Black Americans from the rural South to the urban north in the early 1900s.The migration we’re seeing now isn’t on that scale, but it could well be one of the most important population shifts in a long time — if it sticks. Even before the pandemic, we started seeing a shift in migration patterns. The pandemic and its aftermath have accelerated them. Now most parts of rural Virginia are seeing more people move in than move out. Most are also losing population, but only because, with aging populations and falling birth rates, deaths outnumber both births and net in-migration.You’ll see some red splotches on the map above that haven’t experienced this net in-migration; on the contrary, they’re seeing out-migration. The two most significant are Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, because those have the biggest economic implications. However, you’ll still see a splotch on part (but, importantly, not all) of Southwest Virginia, the heart of Southside — and this I-95/I-85 corridor south of Petersburg.Too many people are moving out of Brunswick, Greensville, Emporia and SussexThis map shows which localities have seen more people move in than move out — or vice versa. Note that a county might see more people moving in but still lose population because deaths outnumber births and the net in-migration. Courtesy of Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia.The map above shows the places with the most in-migration and the most out-migration. In the case of these counties we’ve been talking about, it’s net out-migration that’s driving the severe population declines in Brunswick, Greensville and Sussex. Now we come to the hardest part:The scale of out-migration in Brunswick, Greensville, Emporia and Sussex is uniqueThese localities are losing population two ways. This chart shows which category is driving most of the population loss. Data source: Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, the University of Virginia. Population changes only two ways: deaths vs. births and people moving out vs. people moving in. Out of 133 counties and cities, Virginia has 20 that lost population both ways — deaths outnumbered births and more people moved out than moved in. In 15 of those, deaths over births account for most of the population loss. In five, out-migration is the main cause. One of those is Radford, a college town where statistics like this might get skewed by college students who, by definition, are going to move out.The other four are Brunswick, Greensville, Emporia and Sussex.Why is this cluster of localities seeing more moving vans than hearses? That answer is something statistics alone won’t answer. In fact, the statistics pose even more questions.This region has not seen an unusual amount of job lossesThe big job losses came in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which saw a wave of factories across the southern tier of Virginia close. The effects of that are long in the past. The more recent suspect is the pandemic.However, the Federal Reserve shows that Brunswick County, Emporia and Greensville County all had slightly more jobs in July 2024 than they did in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. Only Sussex was down, slightly.Statistically, we cannot attribute the unusual out-migration to some calamitous and unique economic event. All we can say is that it’s happening, and I’d welcome suggestions from anyone in that area who might shed more light on these numbers.Here’s something we do know:Out-migration is making the region poorerThe localities in red are the only ones in Virginia where new residents moving in during 2021-2022 made less money than those who moved in 2018-2019. Data courtesy of Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia.Hamilton Lombard, a demographer with the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, has been doing some research into the nexus between population changes and income changes by locality in Virginia. He recently compared the changes in the two years before the pandemic (2018-2019) with the two years after the prior census (2020-2021). He found that in almost every locality in Virginia, the new residents moving in during or after the pandemic made more money than the ones moving in before the pandemic. There were just 10 exceptions that saw new residents in 2020-2021 make less money than the ones who moved in during the pandemic. Those 10 included Brunswick County, Greensville County, Emporia and Sussex County. In fact, the biggest differentials were in Brunswick and Greensville. In Brunswick, the new residents post-pandemic made 25% less than the ones who moved in before. In Greensville County, the drop was 21%. In Sussex, it was 10% less. No other community saw double-digit drops like that. (I’ll have more to say about these figures statewide in a future column.)Here’s how unusual that is: Even in localities that saw net out-migration, many have still seen their new residents make more money than those moving out. (Roanoke, for instance, is in that category.) These 10 localities have seen the worst deal of all — not only are they seeing more people move out than move in, they’re seeing more affluent people move out and less affluent ones move in. Economically, they’re trading down.Now, here’s where things get curious — and perhaps political:Most of these negative population trends vanish once you cross the state lineNorth Carolina has only six localities that have lost population through both deaths outnumbering births and out-migration. Courtesy of North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management.Virginia has 14 localities that border North Carolina, from Virginia Beach to Grayson County. Half of those are experiencing net out-migration: Virginia Beach, Greensville County, Brunswick County, Halifax County, Pittsylvania County, Danville, Henry County and Patrick County.Of the 15 North Carolina localities that border Virginia, only one has experienced net out-migration over the past three years: Hertford County, just south of our Southampton County.The North Carolina county directly south of Brunswick and Greensville is Northampton. It’s not only seen net in-migration, its new residents make 19% more than those moving in before the pandemic. There’s also a big income differential. The new residents moving into Northampton County average $54,267 a year; the new ones moving into Greensville average $25,536.What is so magical about the state line that causes these population trends to change? Here’s where I’d expect Gov. Glenn Youngkin to say “taxes.” (He has before.) Specifically, that North Carolina has lower income tax rates than Virginia. However, it also has higher sales taxes. I can hear that debate starting now. Although I would be curious to hear that debate, let’s not end this piece on that note.An economic turnaround is just one corporate decision awayA rendering of what the Mid-Atlantic Advanced Manufacturing Center could look like. Courtesy of VEDP. Two of the state’s three largest megasites are in this same corridor: the 1,560-acre Mid-Atlantic Advanced Manufacturing Center in Greensville County and the 649-acre Sussex Green Enterprise Park South in Sussex County.Only the 3,528-acre Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County is bigger.The budget that the General Assembly passed this year, and that Youngkin signed into law, ramps up state spending to get these sites ready for industrial prospects. In August, Youngkin announced $126 million in “business-ready” grants. Of that, $8.5 million goes to the Greensville site, $1.5 million to the Sussex site and another $1 million to the 398-acre Stonewall Industrial Park in Brunswick County.All it would take would be one big score at any of those sites to turn all these negative statistics around.Until then, for whatever reason, Jarratt is at the epicenter of an unusual population trend in Virginia, and the closure of its main employer, even if it’s only temporary, certainly won’t help. On the other hand, it might help focus the state’s attention on a problem that’s bigger than one company or even one county.Early voting numbers are up over 2020Voters head toward the registrar’s office in Botetourt County this week for early voting. Photo by Dwayne Yancey.Early voting is now underway across Virginia. If you want to see who’s on your ballot and where candidates stand, see our Voter Guide. In this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, I’ll look at what the first week’s worth of voting numbers show. You can sign up for that or any of our other free newsletters below: The Daily Everything we publish, every weekday The Weekly A roundup of our 10 most popular stories each week, sent Saturdays Cardinal Weather In-depth weather news and analysis on our region, sent Wednesdays West of the Capital A weekly round-up of politics, with a focus on our region, sent Fridays The Weekend A roundup of local events, delivered Thursdays Cardinal 250 Revisiting stories from our nation’s founding. Delivered monthly Sign up The post This Southside town with the shuttered meat plant is at epicenter of unusual population trends appeared first on Cardinal News.First published by Cardinal News.