Thousands struggle amid touted growth

One small town will lose 650 jobs when an aluminum mill closes near the holiday.
Chicago Tribune
HANNIBAL, Ohio -- Everett Burkhart is losing his job at the end of the month and doesn't want to hear any bullish talk from President Bush or anyone else about how the economy is getting stronger.
"I notice he didn't stop by here," the 55-year-old Burkhart said, referring to the president's visit last week to North Carolina, where Bush promoted national job gains.
Beneath the federal government statistics that show the nation's economy is improving are the smaller and more focused numbers that tell a different story in the industrial Midwest and elsewhere around the nation.
In small Ohio manufacturing centers such as Wooster, Archbold, Lima and the Ohio River village of Hannibal -- where 650 jobs, including Burkhart's, are about to end with the closing of an aluminum mill -- there still is little to celebrate.
These places, among those where about 3,100 Ohio jobs will be eliminated in the next few months, underscore the reality that the economy, despite macro measurements of job gains, remains an intensely local matter characterized by micro concerns. The effects of the changing employment status of people like Burkhart are often not reflected in the regular churn of economic data.
Bush last week heralded an economy that created 215,000 new payroll jobs last month and posted robust growth of 4.3 percent last quarter. And he touted a national unemployment rate that has declined to 5 percent, lower than the average of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s.
Only part of picture
However, in this hard-hit region of eastern Ohio, those numbers don't tell the whole story. Unemployment rates here are consistently higher than the national average, and poverty rates are naggingly high.
In Monroe County, for example, the unemployment rate is 7.5 percent. In Athens County the rate is 5.2 percent, but the poverty rate is 28 percent, reflecting the fact that nearly 3 in 10 working people live below the poverty line struggling at low-wage jobs.
Burkhart has been on strike for the past year against Ormet Primary Aluminum Corp., which runs a mill just north of Hannibal. The company is closing the plant after Christmas.
Burkhart, who had made $16.50 an hour, plus benefits, is now making $6 an hour teaching driver education. He has two children in college and says he will use his savings to get them through graduation. His own future, though, is unclear, he said.
Some people in Monroe County, a heavily forested and sparsely populated county on the Ohio River, say Burkhart and his United Steelworkers union brethren never should have gone on strike.
That point is argued continually, but the bottom line is hundreds of the best-paying jobs in the county are about to end, and that will have consequences.
Pantries feeling pinch
While the Midwest is bracing for the impact of large automotive job cuts at Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp., manufacturing job losses already have increased demands on Ohio's patchwork social safety net.
Food pantries, many of which diverted supplies to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, are now serving 1 million more Ohioans than they did two years ago, and many are stretched beyond their limits.
"The well is almost dry," said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.
At the same time, pressure is growing on state officials to tap into an estimated $900 million of unused federal money approved by Congress for cash, home heating and other forms of financial assistance to the needy.
Most states spend their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families dollars. But Ohio has chosen not to spend the money because the state fears it could not maintain increased spending levels in the long term, officials said.
Many difficulties for family
In a 55-foot-long trailer with light-blue painted particleboard for paneling, retiree Lester Harden, 61, and his wife are raising their 7-year-old grandson, Andrew. Harden is the father of seven grown children and has 17 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His daughter has mental problems, he said, and cannot care for her child.
Now, with a monthly state check of $223 and a state-paid health insurance card, he is raising the child, diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Harden, who lives in the southeast Ohio hamlet of Glouster, drives the youngster to and from school every day and, seven times a month, takes Andrew to a psychiatrist at a clinic in nearby Athens. Harden received the equivalent of a high school diploma three years ago. He spends many nights helping the second grader do homework.
"We're responsible for everything -- his food, his clothes, his transportation," Harden said, sitting in the trailer's tiny living area, with Christmas decorations strung from the ceiling, pictures of grandchildren on the wall and a woven Jesus Christ rug hanging above the couch.
Harden, who has diabetes, said he was raised by his grandparents and "this is what I have to do," although he wishes the state would provide food and transportation assistance to help.
"I'm not really bitter -- stressed, maybe," he said with a laugh. "I can say this isn't how my wife and I planned to spend our retirement."