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For some additional context, that's about 5% of the total US labor force (160 million). The current labor force turnover (hirings and firings/quits) is around 5 million per month.

Fair point, but the comparison is a bit uneven - you are comparing one industry's post-devastation numbers with another's pre-devastation numbers. Across the rust belt, just a few decades ago, there were many times more coal workers than 70k. If you go back to 1923 there were 883k.

So it's one order of magnitude difference compared to two? That's still not pretty.

900k people in 1923 correspond to 2.5-3M people today, if you account for overall population growth.

There's a lot more wrong with the coal belt than just unemployment. Systemic neglect for generations is likely more significant.