Foreclosure Related Crisis Is Hitting Hard the Small Factory Towns
Foreclosure related financial crisis is particularly hitting hard the small factory towns. Jeff and Amanda Ruegsegger together with hundreds of their neighbours are totally at sea when the plant in their area manufacturing light switches switched off. They are oppressed with a feeling of worthlessness. They are homely folks working and going to church morning and evening. In between they can no longer occasionally drop in at the Mexican eatery for a quick bite. Even their savings for retirement has dried up. Their health insurance has vanished. All that is left are their prayers to keep the two teenaged children healthy. A severance package is somehow seeing them through the present. But there seems to be no alternative but for them to move in search of new pastures. Jeff is a tool-and-die maker.
In similar small towns like West Jefferson, all across America small factories together with its workers and families had thrived on the pickings of the housing boom. Now the employers themselves are struggling to survive. For them there is no other alternative but to lay off workers. The states that are most dependent on their manufacturing are now showing the highest unemployment rates.
In 2008 from January to December the Labor Department statistics show that the unemployment rate of North Carolina is the second highest in the country. Rhode Island came first with the highest unemployment rate.
The foreclosure related crisis hit West Jefferson not with rows of empty houses but indirectly with job losses. The sales tax collection has been fairly level because of Wal Mart and Lowe attracting customers who are budget conscious. They also come from the adjacent counties.
But West Jefferson it not what it used to be in days of yore. Jan Caddell is the owner of the only radio station. He said that the retailers here complain that their business is down by 25%. Tammy Dreyer had to shut down her women’s clothes shop after three years of operations. She had no other alternative when she found herself slipping “deeper and deeper in debt”. Last summer a Dodge dealer’s shop, downed shutters leaving behind a vacant space that had been selling cars since the 50’s.
Indicative of the times is the increase in families knocking on the doors of a food pantry run by Ashe Outreach Ministries. Previously it used to cater to 125 families but now 200 families are on its list said its director Rob Brooks.
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