When You Do Nearly Everything Right and Your Job Disappears
The Washington Post tells the story of an Indiana family and an employer that decides to leave town.
We’ve looked at a couple of stories, this year, about people who “did everything right” (or did enough things right, anyway) and still found themselves under significant financial strain.
The Washington Post has a new installment in this unofficial series: an Indiana family who moved to a small town to save money and take advantage of manufacturing jobs only to find, 13 years later, that they’re at risk of losing everything they’ve worked for.
From belief to resentment in Indiana
This story actually begins with Setser’s parents, who move the family from Chicago to small-town Huntington because they want a better life:
Setser and his parents had moved to Huntington in the 1990s in part because of that idea. “The Town That Works!” was what one Huntington advertisement had promised in those years, and so they had moved from Chicago for lower rent, better schools and reliable union work. First Setser’s mother had been hired at UTEC, then his brother-in-law, and then eventually Setser himself was called in off the wait list. “From Day One to Day Dead,” was the saying about a job at UTEC, because once people were hired they usually stayed until retirement.
That move ticked off two common financial advice checkboxes:
- Move from high cost-of-living areas to low cost-of-living areas
- Move where the jobs are
As we discussed last month, moving to save on housing costs doesn’t always work.
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It turns out “move where the jobs are” isn’t always good advice either—because the jobs can also move. In this case, the “Day One to Day Dead” UTEC factory announced it was moving to Mexico.
Setser’s response to this announcement again follows common financial advice: if you’re worried about not having enough money, look for opportunities to earn more.
His solution to every problem had always been work. Work harder. Work weekends. Work doubles. Work a second job. In Northeast Indiana, the epicenter of American manufacturing, everything was right there if you were just willing to work for it, so in the weeks after the announcement Setser had taken every available shift, increasing his hours and working 19 consecutive nights while still making it back home on school days to stand on the porch and wait for the bus.
But that won’t solve the big problem, the one that’s out of Setser’s control: what to do after UTEC leaves town. And no, the answer isn’t “just go get another job:”
Setser had begun looking for his next job, too, because he had heard rumors that UTEC might begin layoffs sooner than he originally thought. He had inquired about work at a local milk factory and at the General Motors plant in Fort Wayne, but both places already had waiting lists and both would likely require a shift change and an initial pay cut.
At this point, if you’ve already clicked on the Washington Post article, you’ll be ready to respond with all the things Setser did wrong. He doesn’t have a lot of savings. He’s put some expenses on credit cards. He and his fiancée agree to spend a little more than they can afford on their upcoming wedding photographer, because they want to make sure they get good photos.
But you can also read between the lines: the $1,000 wedding photographer “would cost the equivalent of a little more than two weeks in take-home pay.” Setser and his family took one “overnight vacation” in ten years. When Setser’s daughter needed braces, he had to dip into his 401(k).
So yeah, maybe they don’t have a lot of savings, but it doesn’t seem like they have a lot of opportunity to save, either.
And yet they followed a lot of solid financial advice: move to a low cost-of-living area with job opportunities, take on extra work, forego vacations. Setser’s teenage daughter is already planning her future based not on which college she wants to attend—she isn’t sure her family can afford college—but on which jobs might be available for her in a few years. (She’s thinking dental hygienist.)
These kinds of stories always make me anxious first because I want the best for the family profiled in the article, and second because I wonder when all of this will happen to me. Working hard and following good financial advice doesn’t seem good enough, anymore.
What do you think when you read these kinds of stories? Do you think “this won’t happen to me,” or do you think “this will probably happen to me someday, and I need to start preparing for it now?”
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