WELCH, W.Va. — Nestled within America’s once-thriving coal country, 87-year-old Ed Shepard laments a prosperous era gone by, when shoppers lined the streets and government lent a helping hand. Now, here as in one-fourth of all U.S. counties, West Virginia’s graying residents are slowly dying off.

Hit by an aging population and a poor economy, a near-record number of U.S. counties are experiencing more deaths than births in their communities, a phenomenon demographers call ‘natural decrease.’

Years in the making, the problem is spreading amid a prolonged job slump and a push by Republicans in Congress to downsize government and federal spending.

‘You’re the anchors of our Main Streets,’ President Barack Obama told small business leaders in Cleveland on Tuesday. ‘We want your stories - your successes, your failures, what barriers you’re seeing out there to expand. .How can America help you succeed so that you can help America succeed?’

Local businesses in Welch began to shutter after U.S. Steel departed McDowell County, which sits near Interstate 77, once referred to as the ‘Hillbilly Highway’ because it promised a way to jobs in the South. Young adults who manage to attend college - the high-school dropout rate is 28 percent, compared with about 8 […]