Posted on 11/22/2008 7:53:40 PM PST by mathwhizz
“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.”
All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real.
It is the same story in other parts of Michigan, as the state’s already entrenched recession — in at least its fifth year, according to economic experts — digs deeper as a result of the recent global financial crisis.
New data show the state’s unemployment rate crept up to 9.3 percent, almost three times what it was in 2000, and, along with Rhode Island, the highest in the country. Just last week, Herman Miller Inc., an office furniture company based in Zeeland, Mich., announced that it would eliminate or lay off 400 to 650 workers, many of them in western Michigan. SKD Automotive, an auto parts manufacturer in Jonesville, Mich., where it is the largest employer, indicated it would eliminate 300 jobs.
As a result of the steady job losses that began in the summer of 2000, 1.82 million Michigan residents, or close to 20 percent of the population, are now on some form of public assistance, including food stamps and home heating credits, a record for the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My next-door neighbor (here in the Philly area) is from Biloxi. When Katrina wiped the place out, she loaded up her horse trailer with barrels of gasoline and stacks of food and other goods and drove them down to help her family (several related families, actually).
I have always been proud of the way real Americans handled the tremendous adversity brought on by Katrina in Mississippi. I never heard any whining, never heard any gimme gimme gimme free stuff, never heard it was a racist conspiracy. The people there just took responsibility for their own rebuilding or took responsibility for figuring out their own ‘Plan B’, like you did.
The contrast with the Democrat welfare-staters of New Orleans is as stark as can possibly be.
We are hiring in North Dakota. In the past two weeks we hired machinists from Michigan and Ohio. They got here somehow.
'Course if your resume says UAW - don't spend the gas money.
If they were smart, they’d move. Of course, if they were smart, they wouldn’t elect democrats. And I hope they don’t move, because they will probably still vote democrat, and ruin some other state.
I voted for McCain/Palin. Many other people in mIchigan did too. Just not enough to outnumber the major cities and other automatic Democrat voters.
Also some people who should have known better voted (in my opinion) against their common sense best interests. I talked to some of the people I knew who voted Democrat.
Something about they thought it was time for "Change".
Well, I think they're going to get "change" all right. Just not the kind they were expecting...
As for Michigan, plenty of us voted for McCain/Palin - I figured having Godly leaders and a President who was sure to be strong on National Defense was the most important thing.
Unfortunately too many Americans voted for "Change", and now we all get to suffer for it...
I don’t think people are wishing for ill for others, just pointing out that if you live in a state where your skills are not needed, and 10 percent of the workforce is competing with you for jobs, you would be better off to move to another state.
And since this is 2008, not 1800, I hardly think there is any real economic impediment to moving to a new state. You just hop in your car and drive. Or you scrape together $100 bucks and get on the train.
Of course, if you have unemployment insurance and you get government assistance in your current state, that would keep you from moving to a state that won’t give new residents stuff.
They would be better off voting for new government which would stop discouraging investment in the state.
I have an idea.
Let’s elect Democrats and see what happens.
Thank you very much my FRiend!
I was thinking that the poster said “how would they go to a different state to get a job”, but we know that millions of Mexicans actually cross the border illegally and move halfway across our country to get jobs. So we know it can be done.
I’d suggest finding a state that has a Toyota manufacturing plant — but the Democrats plan to pass card-check so they can force the Toyota and other plants into high union contracts and destroy them as well.
But when toilet paper is a luxury, you have achieved communism.
One time we bought out an entire tech school that at no longer had any students for machining trades because there wasn't any jobs. The machinery is still here in America, making parts 20 hours a day. Within 20 years all American manufacturing will be in Right to Work states like ours.
“One way to do it is the husband goes to another state where the job is at, and rents, and sends the check home to family. Once husband is settled in with his new job, sell his old home and moves family to new state. This process may take one to three years but atleast he will move out of MI. That is how some immigrants did it long long time ago”
A long time ago?
That’s how millions of Mexicans are doing it, NOW!
- John
I didn't realize there was a factory in North Dakota...What part of the State is it in???
Your best bet is to move to right to work states where the foreign carmakers like Toyota, Honda, etc. have built lots of plants.
You won’t get paid what you get with your union contract in michigan but you have a good chance at stable long-term employment and the weather is a lot better in the South.
Lots of auto jobs in Alabama and Tennessee especially where Honda has its north american headquarters.
of course my state is the same....our lame gov has a 5 billion dollar deficit and a rising unemployment rate......what do the voters do?....vote her in again....
that is totally untrue.....
conservatives strive to elect candidates that seek to promote economic independence and prosperity.....
what did we get for our efforts?.... a great big punch in the mouth from the zero crowd, a group that wants to destroy small businesses, tax everyone of us more, and take away freedom.....
when you look at Michigan, we are looking at the dry regions of Africa, where people hang around without food, water or work, and keep doing it year in and year out, and wonder if it will always be like that.....
IT WILL ALWAYS BE LIKE THAT UNLESS ONE CHANGES THE WAY THINGS ARE DONE....
for starters, the young people could join the military....college students could go to community college, parents could sell their house or let it foreclose and just move in with relatives or rent for a few years....
and they could elect people that will drill for new energy, liberate small businesses, eliminate abusive unions, and protect our borders from illegals........
I'm the stable job in the family.....I am not liking it but it is what it is....lol
http://www.nam.org/~/media/Files/State_Data/North_Dakota.ashx
Manufacturing growth 2001-2006 = 48.7%
You won’t get paid what you get with your union contract in michigan but you have a good chance at stable long-term employment and the weather is a lot better in the South.
Lots of auto jobs in Alabama and Tennessee especially where Honda has its north american headquarters.
Thank you for the advice.
Getting paid much less, but having a job, is still better than a whole lot of nothing not having a job and no jobs available if I am not working...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.