I save .svg files from my statistical software for the purpose of polishing up figures for publication. When I try to align or move text boxes the text disappears as if there is a white object overlaying it. It is as if the text box itself thinks it is locked in place and any attempt to move it is quashed. Bringing the text to the surface does nothing. Is there a work around here short of re-entering, resizing and re-aligning every bit of text I want to move?

Hard to say without seeing an example file.

Inkscape uses flowed text for "text boxes."  The SVG specification though has nothing for flowed text, paragraph text, or text boxes.  Any other program other than Inkscape probably will have difficulty with the text.  Convert the text to normal text would probably fix it.

This system would let me paste via the button or control V so I uploaded .jpgs to demonstrate. This is what happens after I try to center the title over the graph area.

We would need the svg file to examine.

Thanks

Having this exact same problem, does anyone have a solution?

I've seen this happen when I import pdf files.  The converted svg often contains clipped groups or clipped objects.  Then when I move or edit an object it can spill over the edge of the clip path and of course anything that falls outside isn't rendered. 

You can see this using outline view [View > Display Mode > Outline] or split view [View > Split View Mode].  Try removing any clips or ungrouping the objects.

Thanks for explaining @Paddy_CAD !!  All sorted :)