The late Kristi Beyer’s husband, Bob, continues to do maintenance work at a state office building in Madison. Her son Josh is married, has a toddler son, and lives in Ohio, where he is working full-time as an auto mechanic and studying automotive technology at night at a local community college.
In the Whiteaker family, Jerad has found a job as a forklift driver at a Sub-Zero warehouse just south of Madison. Tammy is still processing auto deals but has switched to working for Tom Peck Ford, where she started out at $15 an hour, a dollar more than at her old employer. Their son, Noah, is a high school senior who works at Culver’s, as his sisters did, and plans to enter the army when he graduates. As for the twins, Alyssa is a senior at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville, where she is majoring in engineering with a minor in business administration. She worked for a semester as a manufacturing engineering co-op student in Madison so will need a fifth year before she graduates. She is working two jobs, has scholarships, and takes out $17,000 a year in student loans. Kayzia finished her psychology degree at Platteville in three years, in part to save on tuition. At times, she worked three jobs. Over the summer, she married her longtime boyfriend. While working to start paying off student loans, she began studying this fall toward a master’s degree in social work at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. She hopes to work eventually with military veterans or people who are homeless.
In the Wopat family, Marv is enjoying retirement, dividing his time between home and Pensacola, Florida, with his lady friend and a rented condo on the beach. He still helps people into treatment and in recovery for addictions. His daughter-in-law, Darcy, continues to work for an appraisal company. For the first time, two of the Wopats’ daughters were old enough to vote for president in 2016, and the entire family is now frustrated and confused that Clinton did not become the nation’s first female president. As for Matt, he is in his seventh year of commuting to the Fort Wayne Assembly Plant, leaving home every Monday morning and returning late every Friday night. He remains a second-shift team leader, making about $30 an hour. He has eight and a half years until he will be eligible to retire with a GM pension.
Acknowledgments
This book is the story of a community. It also is the product of communities of people without whom the book simply would not exist.
My first thanks go to the people of Janesville who welcomed an inquisitive stranger into their midst. Many of their names appear in these pages but still deserve special mention. Stan Milam was the first person I met when I arrived in town; to the end, he was game to lend his considerable reporting skills to run down a stray fact or make sure I was current on goings-on. The staff of the Janesville Gazette was helpful and hospitable. I quickly learned to trust Jim Leute’s knowledge of local business matters; Marcia Nelesen and Frank Schultz are terrific journalists and dinner companions. Paul Ryan made time for interviews in his Capitol Hill office; his staff, particularly Kevin Seifert, helped fill in details. Bob Borremans clued me in to the pleasures of a Wisconsin supper club. Deri Eastman’s big heart made room for me. Ann Forbeck, a writer’s spouse, made sure I knew she understood what working on a book was like. The staff of the Hedberg Public Library, with its excellent Janesville Room and local history database, and the Rock County Historical Society pointed me toward treasures in their files. Other generous local tour guides included Karen Schulte, superintendent of the Janesville Public Schools; Bob Spoden, the Rock County sheriff; Jenifer Keach, the former Rock County coroner; and Kristin Koeffler, director of the county’s domestic violence intervention program. My greatest appreciation, of course, is reserved for the families at the heart of this story, the Whiteakers, Wopats, and Vaughns; I treasure your generosity, patience, and trust.
This book also would not have been possible without the support of The Washington Post, my professional home for the past three decades. Post editors allowed me more time to pursue this passion than any employee has reason to expect. Former executive editor Marcus Brauchli let me extend a one-year leave into two. And executive editor Marty Baron, who so deserves his reputation as the best leader of any American newspaper today, unexpectedly granted me another year to write. My thanks go, too, to managing editor Cameron Barr, national editor Scott Wilson, and my immediate editors, Laurie McGinley, Laura Helmuth, and Susan Levine, each of whom has been beyond understanding about my years-long juggling act.
While away from my newsroom, I was exceptionally fortunate to be harbored by universities and think tanks in stages throughout this project. I am especially indebted to Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where Lizabeth Cohen, Judy Vichniac, and the late Lindy Hess were unfailingly supportive. Elsewhere on campus, economist Lawrence Katz and sociologists Robert Sampson and Bruce Western lent good ideas and encouragement early on. And across the country, David Grusky, director of Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality, provided a first tutorial on recession effects.
I appreciated stints at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. And I am grateful to Timothy Smeeding for inviting me to the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, sharing his wisdom about public policy and income distribution, and helping in many other ways while I was there. Back in D.C., Kathy Courrier wangled office space for me at the American Institutes for Research and then extended my visit. At Georgetown University, I will always hold dear the crew at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, with special thanks to labor historian Joseph McCartin, who took me in when I needed a space to draft the manuscript and was always available as a sounding board. Thanks, too, at Georgetown to Ed Montgomery, a dean who knows more than a little about hurting U.S. auto communities and, early on, welcomed me at what has become the McCourt School of Public Policy; Anthony Carnevale, who directs the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce; and economist Harry Holzer, an expert in the low-wage labor market and a good lunch companion.
Along the way, I benefited from the intelligence, diligence, and friendship of wonderful research assistants. They are (in the order in which we worked together) Stephanie Garlock and Tara Merrigan at Harvard, Daniel Boger at the Wilson Center, and Alyssa Russell at Georgetown. All went above and beyond—and are now on paths to make contributions of their own.
The survey of Rock County was possible because of the generosity of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It would not have happened unless the University of Wisconsin Survey Center—and especially Nathan Jones—had been open to collaborating. Across campus, sociologist Gary Green was invaluable for his brainstorming, insights into Wisconsin’s politics, economy, and public opinion, and indulgence of my myriad questions during the data analysis. Thanks, too, to Rutgers University’s Carl Van Horn for big help on survey questions.
For the job-retraining analysis, I am grateful for the support of the Joyce Foundation, where Whitney Smith gave expert advice and was graceful when our findings didn’t show the benefit for which she’d hoped from retraining around Janesville. Matías Scaglione was a determined and enthusiastic partner in prying unemployment and wage data from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development—and much more. At Blackhawk Technical College, Sharon Kennedy opened doors and became a friend. Mike Gagner provided institutional data and his expert knowledge of it. I am indebted for data analysis and stellar guidance to labor economists Laura Dresser at the University of Wisconsin’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy and Kevin Hollenbeck of the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
This book has benefited greatly from friends and colleagues who, at various stages, critiqued what I was writing. John Russo and Sherry Linkon, the real experts on the working class, read an early draft and have supplied guidance and cheerleading. Laurie Hertzel, Tom Shroder, and Patsy Sims—gifted narrative editors all—made important contributions.
I am fortunate to have a passel of talented, seasoned author friends who have been indispensable for their advice and sympathetic ears. They include (
in alphabetical order) Pamela Constable, Darcy Frey, Steve Luxenberg, Diane McWhorter, Amy Nutt, and Larry Tye. My friend Rochelle Sharpe, a topflight journalist, has listened to practically every twist and turn and offered steady support. So has Beth Glasser, who lent her proficiency at making charts to create the ones in the appendices. Renie Schapiro made Madison feel like a home and still does. They are a few among the many good friends on whom I have leaned.
Every writer should be as fortunate as I have been in editors. I cannot overstate my gratitude to Richard Todd, who began by helping me improve the manuscript and ended up providing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of wise counsel, wry humor, and steadfast encouragement. Paul Steiger, the founding editor-in-chief of ProPublica, took an interest in Janesville and what I was discovering about job retraining and made a home for an early article.
From the moment I called them out of the blue from Madison, Susan Rabiner and Sydelle Kramer have proven why they are known as the hardest-working and most tenacious literary agents in the business, coaching me on how to shape the story and hone the narrative, and standing alongside me to the end.
At Simon & Schuster, my editor Priscilla Painton’s enthusiasm for “going to Janesville” was matched by her passion for pulling the best from the story. And I so appreciate the contributions of a great team, including the talented Megan Hogan who oversaw the final stages with remarkable efficiency, Fred Chase for deft copyediting, Cat Boyd for her work on publicity, and Elisa Rivlin for a thoughtful legal review. I owe special thanks to president and publisher Jonathan Karp, who believed that Janesville was an essential story for our times.
Most of all, I treasure the devotion and patience of my family throughout this book’s gestation: my parents, Cynthia and Robert Goldstein, still my best role models for civic leadership and an enduring thirst to learn; my caring aunt Judy Berg; and David, Laura, Miranda, and Olivia. I love you all.
Appendix 1:
Explanation and Results of the Survey of Rock County
A book can contain only so many characters, and I was eager to go beyond their anecdotal experiences to explore more broadly the economic circumstances and attitudes of people who live nearby. For that reason, I undertook a survey of Rock County, the part of southern Wisconsin for which Janesville is the county seat.
The survey was conducted in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin Survey Center. Several social scientists contributed ideas. Gary Green, professor of community and environmental sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was most centrally involved in developing the questionnaire with me and analyzing the findings.
We conducted the survey during the late winter and spring of 2013, almost five years after the Great Recession officially ended and more than four years after the Janesville Assembly Plant shut down. The survey instrument was a questionnaire sent by mail to a demographically representative, randomly selected sample of 2,000 residential addresses in Rock County. The overall response rate was high: 59.7 percent.
Most of the questions were intended for everyone who received the survey, while some questions focused on the experiences only of people who had lost a job since the recession began or lived in a household with someone who had been laid off. Some of the latter questions were patterned after items in the few national surveys that have measured how people were affected by losing a job during the recession, so that we could compare the results.
Overall, the findings documented the breadth of job losses in Rock County. More than one in three who responded had lost work or lived with someone who had. They showed the diminished wages and economic pessimism that lingered years after the recession itself. The findings also displayed a decline in labor union membership and sharply divided attitudes toward unions. And they attested to the financial and emotional pain—half had trouble paying for food, nearly two thirds reported strain in family relationships—that losing work caused people in this part of southern Wisconsin.
Here are some of the main findings:
Three quarters of the people who responded said that the U.S. economy in 2013 was still in a recession.
Do you think that the country’s economic recession is over, or do you think the economy is still in a recession?
Overall, slightly more than half said their financial situation was worse than before the recession. And here is a glimpse into the two Janesvilles: People who had lost a job or lived with someone who had were far more likely to say that they were in worse shape than those without a layoff in their household.
Thinking about your household’s current financial shape, are you in better shape or worse shape now than you were five years ago?
Over one third lost a job for economic reasons or lived with someone who had.
At any time during the past five years, have you or has anyone in your household lost a job because of business closing, lack of work, or elimination of positions?
A drop in housing values was widespread.
Has your home lost value in the past five years?
And more than half the people who switched jobs for any reason—not just following a layoff—were earning less money.
If you have taken a new job in the past five years, are you earning more, about the same, or less than in the job you had before?
Pessimism about the economic future was widespread.
Thinking about Rock County, please indicate what you think will happen in the following areas.
Overall, about one third said the government should be doing more to help people who had lost a job. Among those with a layoff at home, more wanted greater government help, but still not a majority.
How much should government help people out of work?
About half had been in a labor union, but most of those were former members.
Do you belong, or have you ever belonged, to a labor union?
Opinions about unions were closely divided.
Overall, do you think labor unions mostly help or mostly hurt the U.S. economy in general?
Many of those who lost a job, or lived with someone who did, took steps to try to cope financially. Here is the percentage who said they did each of the following:
During the time that you or someone else in your household has been—or was—out of work, have you done the following?
For many, being out of work, or living with someone who had been laid off, had emotional and interpersonal effects.
During the time that you or someone else in your household was out of work, did you notice these things happening to you?
Appendix 2:
Explanation and Results of the Job-Retraining Analysis
Even among people who disagree over almost everything else about the economy, the common wisdom is that workers who lose a job, without much likelihood of finding another in the same field, should go back to school to train for a different one. The federal government spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year for the retraining of such dislocated workers. However, research into whether this policy is useful is not extensive.
So, I decided to take a look at whether retraining was helping laid-off workers in southern Wisconsin during the first years after thousands of people lost jobs at GM’s Janesville Assembly Plant and nearby.
The idea was to explore how factory-workers-turned-students fared in school and then at finding work. I focused on Blackhawk Technical College, a public, two-year school in Janesville that specializes in vocational programs. Just after the Great Recession, so many dislocated workers arrived at Blackhawk that the small school had the biggest enrollment surge in the Wisconsin Technical College System’s century-long history.
The findings were surprising: Job retraining, it turned out, was not a path to more work or better pay in and around Janesville, at least not during this time when jobs were so scarce.
The analysis was patterned after a few older studies elsewhere, which had used similar methods to identify laid-off people who went back to school, examine how much they were working and ea
rning afterward, and then compare them with dislocated workers who had not retrained. I collaborated with Kevin Hollenbeck, a senior economist at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and labor economist Laura Dresser, associate director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Several kinds of data went into the analysis. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development provided two data sets. To identify people who had lost a job, we used the department’s records of unemployment claims from summer of 2008 to fall of 2011 for residents of Rock County and neighboring Green County—the parts of southern Wisconsin where most of Blackhawk’s students lived. We also used the department’s unemployment insurance wage records, a type of information that all states collect—and that all employers are required to report—of each employee’s wages. The wage records for Rock and Green counties showed quarterly earnings—that is, what the employee was paid over three months. Blackhawk Tech also provided records of all students who enrolled in its credit programs between summer of 2008, when a large number of jobs began to disappear from Janesville, and summer of 2010. These records contained basic demographics, such as age, sex, race, and ethnicity, as well as academic information, including whether the students needed remedial work, what they studied, and whether they graduated.
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