The industrial corridor north of one of the local (rural Virginia) towns has huge billboards advertising job openings, one after the other. I was told one warehouse is paying $40 an hour for workers. The regional jail out there has one for jail officers with starting pay at $45,000 a year. A year or so ago the big box stores and fast food joints all had signs saying they paid $16 an hour or more. Most of them are staffed with a lot of very elderly people who can no longer survive on their Social Security.