Janesville: An American Story

Great read! I lived in Janesville when "the plant" ruled the blue-collared world. Everyone I knew had a connection to assembly line. A Chevy dealer friend of mine in Galesburg, Illinois always told me the Janesville factory produced vehicles with the fewest post manufacturing problems. Most of the workers did not like the assembly line jobs but the pay and benefits allowed people to buy houses and of course new cars. When the plant closed...a big void was left that could never be filled. Everyone in Felt the loss.

Magnificently written book chronicling so much of what is wrong in this country. The ending is not fulfilling but that's because it's non-fiction; the future for the people – and for all of us in the 99% – does not look good nor does it look to improve any time soon. America needs to do some extensive soul-searching and Amy Goldstein, a masterful writer, illustrates the many reasons why by following a town and those who reside in it for nearly a decade. This is an important book.

Fascinating. I grew up in Janesville, and my father spent 30 years as an employee at GM..I live in Ohio now and go to see my family in Janesvillle often. Beyond Daddy's involvment, none of them have been involved with GM or Lear. I heard a version of the story of GM's closing all along, but I love to read a fuller history of the times; the names of the movers and shakers, and others so much affected by the times. The "can do" attitude referred to by Ms. Goldstein is a perfect way to describe Janesville's culture. The culture also includes a seriously loyal mindset....almost somewhat insular.
I moved out of Janesville in 1947, going to college.Looking at the area now is a wonder to me. Only the city street names and many of the buildings have remained recognizable. . The expansions astound me.

This is a modest almost first person account of the wreakage created by a car plant closing in a town. There is no explanation of the role of technology in the layoffs, but it seems to be a small version of Detroit without the racist complications. The unwillingness of poor people locked into repetitive jobs to learn new skills is shocking.

A little over-wrought, but interesting perspective. Would have preferred the author to be a bit more straight-shooting rather than trying to be so dramatic (every chapter ended on a "cliff hanger") but glad to read about an underrepresented part of the country.

I was a little disappointed in this book. The author pictured the decline of a community where a plant could no longer compete with foreign and domestic competitors. The local company, in this case General Motors, closed an old plant throwing hundreds of employees out of work. As described in the book, those employees and their families endured much hardship, pain, and suffering. I was hoping the author would address effective means of addressing these problems, but the author did not do so.
Instead the author discussed steps Janesville took to help its citizens but according to this author those steps were largely ineffective. Retraining apparently was not much of a solution. Government help failed. Charity was limited and short-term. The author really doesn't tell us how to help these unfortunate people. Many communities are facing this problem. The author missed a great opportunity by failing to address what might really help communities caught in this situation.

Amy Goldstein captured what many American communities have been living through since the Great Recession. Her narrative is compelling. It invites obvious questions about failed macro fiscal, trade, regulatory, workforce and social policies, including education. Will Janesville prompt constructive debate and action? Will there be a sequel?

I was born and raised in Janesville, leaving for college when I was 20. I had great hopes for this book - but ended up a little disappointed: The writing is quite good, as you would expect from a NYTs best-selling author. And, she clearly did her homework - I felt that she captured much about Janesville, and MOST of the cultural touchstones of my youth were accurate (more about this later.) The structure - one chapter on one family, the next chapter on a different family, only to "visit" the first family several chapters later at which point I had forgotten some things about the first family - is my least favorite chapter structure and in this case, caused the book to read more like a book report. Janesville natives will enjoy seeing the names and places that are so familiar to them and it is, in fact, the reason I bought the book; but natives will also laugh at some of the lapses. By now I'm sure the author knows that it's "Five Points" not "Five Corners" but the real head scratcher is this: She makes much of the two pioneering entrepreneurs credited with putting Janesville on the map - Joseph A. Craig and George S. Parker; but, for some odd reason she never points out that the two high schools are named after these men and thus, she misses the opportunity to explore the fierce cross-town rivalry that is so much a part of the fabric of the town. When exploring (too gently, in my view) the rivalry between Janesville and Beloit, the author lets Janesville off the hook by not exploring that most of this rivalry is due to race. Let's be honest: Janesville was the white town and Beloit was the black town - EVERYONE who lived in either town knew that. (It is the single reason that the "Irish Mafia" never invested their wealth in sponsoring a Catholic high school, which a town this size might normally have had: They quite literally had NO fear that their daughters would end up with a black prom date - in fact, they would never (at least until the '80s,) even encounter young black men at Craig HS.) Another glitch that only natives will catch will represent to those natives a huge blunder: The author talks at great length about U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan - she even paints a scene inside his house. She also talks at great length about the many Geo. S. Parkers who lived in "Parker Mansion" and developed and ran Janesville's second industry - Parker Pen. Why on EARTH she does not tie that together by noting that Ryan is the FIRST non-Parker to ever own and live in Parker Mansion is completely beyond me. I should confess that I stopped reading this book about two-thirds of the way thru as it became SO bogged down in the intricacies of the re-training classes many laid off GM workers took that, again, it just read too much like a book report to keep my interest. I'm not quite sure why anyone who wasn't from Janesville or didn't have a role to play in the death of GM and the diminution of the Midwestern auto industry would buy this book but if you do, it's a decent enough read.

Janesville tells what happens when a town is dependent on one industry (cars) and that industry ups and goes away. It is a sad tale of the rust belt but also one of resiliency and determination to make the best of a bad hand. The failure of government to be really useful on so many levels is apparent.

Interesting but not sure what the point is. If you're looking for a folksy story about hard times In a small town, this is it. However, I was expecting some more profound insight and a conclusion about underlying economic issues in small towns across the US. I get that GM closed a plant and people suffered. But that's it? A well-written, depressing story.

I work in Finance and as I’m reviewing “Janesville” this Friday, January 5, 2018, it happens to be Nonfarm Payrolls day, the day of the month when most pundits on CNBC and Bloomberg TV have ritually argued for quite some time now that the Fed’s low interest rates have led the economy to full employment, while others have begun to agitate for hikes, for the QE-related bond purchases to be reversed etc.

And from 40,000 feet the picture seems to be quite clear: even if things are far from perfect, the storm that started some ten years ago has very clearly abated. From 10% unemployment in October of 2009, the number today was at 4.1%. From 25.2 weeks in June 2010, the median unemployment duration has fallen to 9.1 weeks. From over 15.3 million unemployed in April 2010, the number today was under 6.6 million.

Conversely, of course, and this is again a view from 40,000 feet, the actual employment rate is stuck at a stubbornly low 60.1%, which is marginally better than the 58.2% minimum it hit in July 2012 (or its 58.3% as recently as October 2013), not to mention that in January 2007 it had been at a lofty 63.4%.

The reason is that things are different: the labor participation rate remains a truly abysmal 62.7%, versus 66.3% in January of 2007 and has barely budged from its low of 62.4% in September of 2015, all while, or perhaps even because, pay (hourly and otherwise) is stuck in the doldrums.

What is one to make of it all?

You could do a lot worse than abandon your bird’s eye view and land on Janesville, Wisconsin, the hometown of 2012 vice-presidential candidate and current #2 in succession to Donald Trump, speaker Paul Ryan, a city of 60k that for at least a century was synonymous with American manufacturing.

Janesville not only was the home of the Parker pen, it was also a manufacturing hub for General Motors, who bought a local businessman’s truck business in the early 20th century and carried on making SUVs in Janesville all the way up to 2008, attracting in the process a large number of suppliers, such as Lear.

Janesville is also an important city in the history of labor relations in America. A star of the progressive era, Wisconsin pioneered laws that in the thirties FDR enacted for the entire nation, while Janesville in particular was famous both for the local strength of the UAW, but also for its effectiveness in mediating good relations with GM, preventing violence and organizing charity across town.

In this brilliantly conceived, masterfully told, but also very tough book, author Amy Goldstein recounts the story of three Janesville families that were struck by unemployment as Parker Pen, GM and Lear all shut shop in the 2008 crash, their travails in seeking alternative employment and their efforts to keep their families and their lives together.

She also takes a pragmatic look at the efforts expended by all the members of the community who sought to assist them, from the director of the job center who gave it all to help, to the compassionate teachers who kept their kids’ spirits up, to the union leaders and the leaders of the business community who refused to give up, all the way up to the local and federal-level politicians.

You read this book, and the BLS statistics truly come alive, they acquire names and feelings and habits and aspirations.

Don’t read “Janesville” if you’re down, you have been warned. But if you’ve got the stomach for it, it’s now the book I’d recommend you read about the “Great Recession” and I’ve read many good books about the struggles of common people in the last decade, including “Bad Paper,” “Chain of Title,” “The Unbanking of America” and “Hand to Mouth.”

I enjoyed all of them, but “Janesville” hit me hardest and probably taught me the most too.

"Janesville" is a solid piece of reporting about the after-effects of a large GM plant closing in Janesville, WI. It proceeds chronologically from 2008 through 2013. The reporter focuses on a few key characters: the workers themselves as well as other people in Janesville (teachers, social workers, bankers, job centers, etc.) who tried to mitigate the economic disaster. The outcome is mixed. One clear finding is that job-retraining is only minimally effective at helping laid off factory workers. She also confirms what has been widely recognized: that the recovery from the Great Recession was disproprotionate: leaving lower income people much worse off and rich people much better off. Her close attention to just a few families allows the reader to understand the trouble job loss brings both to people but also to communities. The most eye-opening parts of the book are where the author examines the problem of teenage homelessness in Janesville. Shocking material, at least to me.

The book is very careful. The author doesn't take sides or make any polemic arguments. She contracted social scientists to help her out with surveys, which fortify her reporting. Her depiction of bitter Wisconsin politics is accurate and fair-minded. You can trust this author to be giving you the facts and letting you make up your own mind. That may be why the book has little verve in the writing. It's a pretty dull read. One of its endorsements called it "diligent" -- a nice way of saying "trustworthy and a tad dull." But perhaps we should welcome sober, plodding books like this as an alternative from click-bait, fake news, and hyper partisan media cocoons.

One interesting subtheme of the book is that a lot of people who work in factories don't really like the work and would prefer not to do it. What they seem to like about it are the security and the benefits -- i.e., working in a place with union protections -- and the camaraderie of belonging.

My only real beef is that the book's title (at least) claims that Janesville presents an "American story." This makes me a little uncomfortable. Even though what has happened in Janesville has happened in many other places in the US, I'm not sure that Janesville, WI, should stand in for America. Its population is something like 90% white, and so there's not an immigrant or a person of color in this book. In this sense, it isn't like America at all, and thus the book might be taken to reinforce a mistaken notion that the working-class in this country is white, when in fact the working class is dominated by blacks and Latinos. But that's more a problem of the title than the book itself.

I would recommend this to open-minded people interested in the dilemma of disappearing work in the U.S. Read it along with Matthew Desmond's Evicted (also about Wisconsin) to get a good sense of why the state is so divided (and perplexed about its future).

The book about the closing of the GM plant in Janesville, WI is truly an account of the sad disruption of thousands of lives and an industry that supported a thriving middle class. Brought on by the Great Recession of 2007, the general collapse of the American auto industry, and the end of production of the gas-guzzling Tahoe in Janesville because of declining sales, the bottom fell out. The decision was made to stop production and to close the Janesville Assembly Plant. This was the beginning in Janesville and surrounding areas of long-term suffering beyond what anyone would have imagined possible at the time. This time there would be no reopening of the plant, as had occurred in the past.

Amy Goldstein captures the human side of the story well; her narratives of the individuals and families are sensitive and eye-opening. She also captures well the economics of the situation, the ripple affect in other industries which supplied the auto plant and/or the workers,and how older workers especially will likely never recover income levels that they once had. New jobs, when they are found--even after vocational and professional training, for the most part do not pay as much as the old, especially for older workers. Some survivors, the Janesville Gypsies, who travel hours each week to distant locations to continue to work for GM for the high wages and the promised pensions, live apart from their families during the week. Extensive disruption of life abounds.

The story goes beyond Janesville. There is a cautionary tale here for (young) people today, a point made by Thomas L. Friedman in his book "Thank You for Being Late," that everyone has to make his or her own future through study, hard work, and building connections. You have to take seriously and actively your preparation for life and your livelihood, looking for the signs of the times to prepare yourself for something unexpected. Nothing is "guaranteed" anymore.

The chapters in the book are short and easy to read, engaging even--though the story is somewhat depressing. The appendices, especially #2 on "Job-Training Analysis," are quite informative. There are now two Janesvilles--one of those who lost their jobs; one of those who didn't.

The lessons told here can help the reader reflect on other similar situations of factory closings. For example, the book helped me better understand the disruption in my own hometown of Port Allegany, PA where the Pittsburgh-Corning glass factory closed on June 30, 2016 after 80+ years. My father helped build the factory in the 1930s and worked there his whole life, leaving only during WWII, thankful for the job. Although the town never had a "Golden Age," the "Bronze Age" was likely in the 1950s supported by two glass factories. Those days will likely not return again.

This book was a birthday gift from my son Joe. A good choice. Thank you, Joe.

Barack Obama showed up at the General Motors factory in Janesville, Wisconsin during the 2008 presidential campaign and proclaimed, “I believe that, if our government is there to support you and give you the assistance you need to retool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years.”
Instead the plant closed, leaving thousands of its workers and those at related businesses unemployed.
Nor is Obama the only politician to intersect with the Janesville story. It’s Paul Ryan’s hometown. Ryan is Speaker of the House and was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012. His father lost the tip of his thumb to a piece of machinery in the plant, working summers during law school.
A reporter at the Washington Post, Amy Goldstein, tells this tale in her new book, “Janesville: An American Story.”
It’s almost unbelievably grim.
Auto worker wages, once $28 an hour, have declined to $14 for new hires — $10 for some workers working for “suppliers” on the same factory floor.
Janesville, which you might have imagined as a wholesome, prosperous, middle class American city — something out of a Land’s End catalog — turns out to have 400 homeless children, some of whom have been abandoned by their parents.
A United Auto Workers local that a decade ago had 7,000 active members now has 438, with 4,900 retirees.
Another large employer in the city, Parker Pen, was sold three times. The final buyer shut the factory and laid off the staff, but first paid longtime workers to fly to Mexico and train people there to do their old jobs.
One former auto industry employee goes back to school to become a prison guard, then commits suicide after cheating on her husband with an inmate.
Others become “GM gypsies,” leaving their families behind for days at a time to commute to far-away GM jobs in other states.
Some families can’t qualify for health care at a free clinic because the food stamps they are receiving push their income over the limit.
One family was turned away from a food pantry because their teenager, working three after-school jobs, earned too much for the family to qualify for help. The line at the food pantry starts forming outside two hours before it opens.
These are the sort of disgruntled Americans, facing economic anxiety, who elected Trump, right? Goldstein points out, though, that while Trump did carry Wisconsin’s electoral votes, Janesville itself went for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, as it went for Obama in 2012, notwithstanding Ryan’s presence on the 2012 ticket.
What’s the remedy?
Not education or job training, necessarily: Goldstein reports that laid-off workers who went back to school at the local technical college ended up worse off, financially, than those who did not.
Someone who understands Washington better than I do once explained to me that if you really want to understand a politician you need to know their home district. That was the genius of Michael Barone’s classic “Almanac of American Politics”: it didn’t just tell you about the congressman and where he or she went to college, it told you about who the big employers were, and what countries the great-grandparents of the voters in the district had come from.
Ryan comes off as a bit remote in Goldstein’s telling, more absorbed in the long-term details of the federal budget than in the up-close trauma of Janesville families. But if you want to understand his motivations when it comes to bringing manufacturing back to the American heartland, finding more effective ways to combat poverty, and strengthening economic growth, you can do a lot worse than to start in Janesville, and with this book. It doesn't necessarily outline the longterm causes of wage stagnation or suggest solutions. But it does provide a sensitively and carefully told close-up look at what has happened.

Janesville, Wisconsin is a story about the type of people I knew. When I got out of the Air Force after Vietnam, I lived in Michigan and I installed process control systems in automobile assembly plants and steel mills across the industrial heart of the Midwest. I got to see the peak of America's manufacturing prowess in the 1970s, when we actually made things - before we shipped the factories and jobs overseas. I hung out with the guys who worked there, went bowling and shooting with them, complained about the same things, wives, girlfriends, jobs and bosses, and shared their same concerns. Janesville is their story.

On the surface it's an incredibly well written narrative that connects the laid off auto workers, job center retraining, union organizers, community and business leaders, and politicians. It tells the story of laid-off factory workers of a General Motors factory that's never going to reopen. Five stars for the reporting.

But what makes the book great is that the story is deeper than just the people she follows. On closer reading it busts the shared delusions about our economic system that requires our faith in order for it to survive.

First, America was built on workers who believed that their hard work would allow their children to have opportunities to do better. The hard truth is that part of the Janesville story is about a generation of blue collar workers who no longer believed or understood that. They grew up thinking that a factory job wasn't an entry into the economy, but instead was a multi-generational entitlement. They thought of the jobs as something to hand to their children rather than have them aspire for something better.

To be clear it doesn't mean they didn't work hard or deserved what happened to them. But it does mean they got complacent as they bought into a fantasy of a never ending economic cornucopia with no responsibility on their part. The reality is that the 50 years of post WWII factory work in GM and other places was a golden age of blue collar jobs - it's gone and not coming back.

Second, the jobs aren't coming back because while our economy has continued to grow, in the name of corporate efficiency and profitability we've closed the shipyards and factories and moved those jobs overseas. We traded jobs for short term corporate profits. (And with campaign donations spread equally, both parties supported this and no one in the government stood in their way.) The bulk of those gains have ended up in the pockets of the very affluent. Income inequality stares you in the face. The level of despair and anger of the workers the companies and politicians abandoned is high. They voted in 2016.

Third, when those jobs moved in the name of maximizing profits, no one (other than unions) pointed out that all the supporting jobs would disappear as well. Not only the obvious ones like machine tool makers, direct suppliers, etc. but that the supporting service jobs would also disappear in the community. Restaurants, movie theaters, real estate agents, etc.

Fourth, and a critical insight that I almost missed, because it was buried in Appendix 2, (and a real surprise to me) was that, "laid-off workers who went back to school were less likely to have a job after they retrained than those who did not go to school.". Wow. Talk about burying the lead. Skill retraining is a core belief of any economic recovery plan. Yet the data the author and her associated researchers gathered shows that it's not true. People who went through skills retraining were worse off than those who went out on their own.

Fifth, this means that in spite of their well-meaning efforts, both the jobs training people and the local boosters of "Janesville will rise again" were actually doing the laid-off workers a massive disservice. The very things they were advocating were not going to help this generation of laid-off workers. I wonder if they've come to grips with that.

Sixth, This raises the question of what kind of skills training, if any, should be given to laid-off workers when the factory shuts down in a one-company town. My conclusion from the narrative that followed the families is that they would have been better served by basic training in the reality of their new economic context, financial management and new life skills. For example, teaching a few days of, "Lessons learned from families in other one-industry cities" and "the mortgage meltdown - how to get out from underneath an underwater mortgage," and practical job search tips outside their community, along with organized trips to other cities and paid for car pools for they gypsy workers commuting to far off GM plans. In addition, skills training in resilience, agility, etc. would have provided these workers with a quick education and tools for surviving in the new economy.

A great book that made me sad, angry and make me think.
Bravo.

Who could not see paying someone $28/ he wasn't going to bankrupt the company. GM should have been sold off by product line. Then state and town offer to buy plant and a car line from the bankruptcy judge

This is an incredibly sad look at what happens to a city when the primary employer is no longer there. GM was a crucial part of jobs in Janesville, WI for decades. In 2008 the plant closed, along with local companies that supplied it. The effect was devastating to the economy of the city. This was shortly followed by the Parker Pen factory closing, after several buyouts and lay offs. I grew up about 25 miles from Janesville. I always remembered it as a nice city that seemed to be pretty well off. I left Wisconsin before the closing of the plants so I didn’t see first hand the devastation left by GM and Parker Pen closing. I do know, however, the importance those companies had to the city. The personal stories of those affected were touching and heartbreaking. It was interesting to hear the different paths people left jobless by the closings took. The stories of teenagers left homeless, or having to get multiple jobs to help their families survive were especially sad. Unfortunately it isn’t just Janesville that has seen these problems, but manufacturing cities all over the US. With time, hopefully all these cities will be able to rise again.

First, the good.

The breadth and length of reporting in Janesville are impressive -- covering nearly a decade and more than a dozen families. The reporting and analysis on impactfulness (and in some cases lack there of) of job retraining programs and other recovery efforts was useful for thinking about what to do in future crisis. The author treats all characters with an incredible deal of sympathy. The coverage of high school kids needing to work multiple jobs to help the family make ends as well as people falling into the systemic gaps of being 'not quite poor enough' meet was particularly powerful.

That leads us to the bad. The sympathy too often leads to taking everyone at face value, without deeper analysis, and the author often ends up regurgitating talking points rather than seeing what's really going on, which is infuriating. Its the worst form of "he said, she said" as artificial balanced reporting. A few examples of issues:

1) The author consistently refers to the millionaire business leaders of Forward Janesville as "optimists" (also their self described word). The idea that a millionaire who has seen no impacts of a recession is an "optimist" while someone who loses their job and is forced to take one with have the wages (if that) is therefore a "pessimist" is a joke.

2) The author talks about the loss of the early 20th century titans of janesville (e.g. pen company owner) who helped prop it up with their generosity, but says those people are gone, and therefore all the non-profits are struggling to help the community. Meanwhile, she mentions at a different point, almost as an aside, that one of the "optimists" mentioned above donated almost half a million dollars to Scott Walker's re-election campaign. So its pretty clear that its not that there aren't people with money, they are just choosing to spend it in ways that prop up themselves rather than community.

3) She mentions Scott Walker after winning saying he wants to "divide and conquer" workers, and talks about an above "optimist" beaming, but then leaves it there. Doesn't acknowledge any attacks on worker or what this means for wages for workers long-term. And, through end of book, does nothing to analyze how Wisconsin and Walker performed relative to other states (e.g. Minnesota) that did not use these tactics and have achieved much better outcomes for their states.

4) She repeatedly takes Paul Ryan at his talking points, even going so far to saying Ryan differs from Obama on recovery package because of Ryan's debt concerns, which looks even more laughable in the hindsight of latest tax bill. Not the author saying "Ryan claimed" or even "Ryan has stated...", but instead the author regurgitating Ryan's talking points as her own statement.

5) Somewhat separately, there's a lot of coverage of the people making ~$25/hr at GM, who then are forced to take jobs making ~$10/hr, but there's almost no coverage of those people who were making ~$10 hr or less pre-recession and the recessions impact on them. I know the scope of a single book can only go so far, but since the book's general claim was around the cascading impacts of losing GM, this seems like a huge blindspot. Many GM workers are discussed as being able to sell a snowmobile or refinance a house to help make ends meet during the recession, but what about all the people who don't have a snowmobile or house to refinance in the first place?

The final Tahoe reached the end of the assembly line at 7:07 A.M. on 12/23/2008 in Janesville Wisconsin, with a sticker price of $57,745. (It was raffled off, $20/ticket, raising $200,460 for the United Way charity and won by a GM retiree who had worked there 37 years.) The first Chevrolet had emerged on Valentine's Day of 1923. In its heyday it had over 7,000 workers and covered 4.8 million square feet. The plant turned out artillery shells during WWII, then returned to domestic production. During the Great Depression it had also closed, then reopened a year later. This time would be different, and the plant remains dark and its innards picked over and auctioned off. An estimated 9,000 lost their jobs in and near Janesville during 2008 and 2009 - among the 8.8 million jobs lost nationally.

Efforts by Republican Paul Ryan to negotiate the plant's reopening fail, job retraining programs lauded by politicians disappointed, and the high-paying jobs do not return. The Lear plant, which supplied G.M. with car seats and interiors also closed. Contributions to local charities shrivel. The author follows a number of characters from 2008 through 2013, and ends with an epilogue reporting unemployment in Janesville is now less than 4%.

Success, a happy ending? Hardly - real wages have fallen, a considerable number of dislocated G.M. workers dropped out of classes at Blackhawk Technical when they learned instructors would not accept course papers written out in longhand.

It's not a good story, and it's not written well either - boring, confusing, and fails to address the real causes of 'Janesville' - eg. poorly designed American cars (expensive, unreliable), over-reaching workers, the 'Great Recession,' and a lack of U.S. industrial policy that allowed much of our manufacturing capability and skills to be hollowed out.

What happens to a community when a major employer leaves town? This is the basic premise of Janesville. The major employer is GM. The community is Janesville, Wisconsin. The book covers the years following the closing of the GM plant in December of 2008 to the present. I became unemployed a year after this particular GM plant closed. At the time, I lived close to another GM plant, this one in Wentzville, Missouri, that also shut down. I can remember driving by the huge plant and seeing the vacant parking lots and wondering about the thousands of workers who once worked there. Recessions are tough on everyone.

Author Amy Goldstein covers the story from numerous angles: the social workers, the community college educators, the politicians, the ancillary businesses, and, of course, the workers who lost their jobs. The story told here is not unique to Janesville. The same economic hardships have hit other communities that have relied on one or two large employers. This book offers a useful case study on what happens and what steps can and should be taken once that large employer picks up and leaves town.

The road forward for the many workers directly and indirectly affected by the plant closure contains many twists and turns. Some head to the community college to get degrees and training and other fields. Some try to scrape by hopping from one low wage job to another. Other's decide to use their seniority to take jobs in other GM plants hundreds of miles away, leaving families behind as they chase the higher wages that a union job can provide. Very few of these individuals end up in a better place than before the plant closing. And there in lies the problem facing large swaths of our country. High paying manufacturing and industrial jobs are disappearing and unlikely to return, despite the promises of ill-advised politicians. The days when a person can make a good living with only a high school diploma are over. The truth is, pay is directly related to the difficulty and time it takes someone to become qualified for a certain position. If you can be replaced by someone with little to no experience, you're unlikely to make a wage high enough to live on. There are many exceptions, but so, too, is the competition for these low skilled, high paying jobs.

There have been a number of very good books that have come out recently that provide a solid understanding of where things are now and how close we are to falling off a cliff. There is the book Evicted, which tackles the problem of housing affordability; American Pain, which covers the opioid epidemic; and Hillbilly Elegy, that looks at the deteriorating fortunes of coal country.

There are steps individuals and policy makers can take to avoid a future catastrophe. From an individual standpoint, it's important that you find a profession that not only pays well but is something that you enjoy. When I have shared this viewpoint with my brother, who works in a high paying job in an oil refinery, his response has been that he works in an oil refinery so he can have the money to do what he enjoys. There is some validity in that argument, but why  spend all of your working life chasing dollars? Why not get something more out of work than money? As for policy makers, it's important that they spend heavily in innovation and technology. Look ahead and not backwards. There's a reason why clean energy jobs out number dirty energy jobs such as coal, oil, and gas.

In the 1980’s as a young adult, I spent 5 years of my life working in every possible area inside “The Plant”, as it was simply known to almost any working-class adult within a 20 mile radius of Janesville. If you didn’t live in the area, it’s almost impossible to really understand just how large of a role that hulking facility had in the community, and in its history.

This book is well-researched and extremely readable, with numerous chapters presented economically and in short bursts, rotating in topic among the key figures in the book as the years roll on.

I also give the author much much credit for presenting the story in, for the most part, an apolitical manner, without seeking a scapegoat. The story is not a pretty one - there are few happy endings when thousands of high-paying blue collar jobs suddenly vanish in such a relatively small town. And Janesville is only one of hundreds of rust belt cities that have seen their manufacturing base decimated in the past 30 years, at a huge cost to society. The sad fact is that $75,000 a year manufacturing jobs, with a pension and terrific benefits - which require only a few hours or a few days of training at most - are increasingly hard to come by in a global economy. There are no easy solutions and no villains here. One can point fingers at unrealistic unions, greedy corporate leaders, incompetent government agencies or self-serving politicians - but it’s simply not possible to ignore, forever, the forces of a global economy, and the rising industrial capabilities of emerging economies. A sad story indeed.

I finished reading this book a couple of days ago, and I can't get it out of my head. The author does a memorable job of telling the stories of a variety of people in Janesville, Wisconsin, describing how their lives change when the GM plant, the Parker Pen factory, and other local plants close. The big picture is quite depressing, but the determination of many of the Janesville residents is extremely touching. The book is very well written, and it illuminates a type of American experience that is not well understood by those who live more privileged lives. It reminded me a bit of the book Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel. I think it is an important contribution to the literature of the American experience.

As a Wisconsin native, I was excited to read this book after hearing And speak on a podcast. Unlike some author interviews, she made me want to read the book but didn't give away almost everything the book covers and concludes. The book is at times heartbreaking, shocking, and inspiring. It is a deep insight into those that bought into the American dream, and years after the great recession are still worse off despite working hard and doing what they were told to get back on track. It reads as a good prelude to the 2016 presidential election, when Wisconsin shockingly went for the gop for the first time in many years. It makes you think about what it would really take for the average, hard working Americans to be back in stable, well paying jobs they expected before the great recession. Thanks to Amy for telling their stories.

If you're in the mood for an emotional, visceral, true life story, read "Janesville." Along the way you'll learn critical details about how how and why politicians and community leaders dropped the ball on job generation and training and continue to do so.

I read the book during my fifth month of unemployment. Not a big coincidence since about twenty percent of my working life has been spent looking for, and training for, jobs. A bigger coincidence is that I grew up in Kenosha, one of the factory towns mentioned in the book. An even bigger coincidence is that a few years ago I pitched a movie project to Diane Hendricks, the billionaire in the book.

Having experienced first hand the effect that factory jobs and unions had on Kenosha, I vowed to never work in a factory. Over 40 years have gone by and my record is clean. Instead, I worked my way through college to get a BFA and then a BSEE degree. I had over two dozen jobs working as sign painter, commercial artist, drafter, circuit board designer, electrical engineer, software engineer, game programmer, technical writer, and copywriter. Throughout most of those jobs, I built a career as a screenwriter.

I mention all of this so that when I say that there is a limit to the labor problems retraining can solve, you'll know it's not for lack of trying on my part. That, I think, is Ms. Goldstein's most important point.

As a screenwriter, I really hope stars with production companies make a movie from this story; stars like Sandra Bullock, Kevin Costner, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Matt Damon, and Elizabeth Banks.

Regardless of what part of the political gamut you occupy and no matter where in America you live, if you still wonder what the heck happened in the 2016 presidential election, Ms. Goldstein's masterpiece will help you understand.

Amy's gift is masterful storytelling framed by magnificent awareness fueled by fascination, resolve, and empathy. The resulting objective reporting and superb writing brings the entirety of Janesville--and its reflection of America--to life. Her weaving of detail and strategic perspective is so profound you find it difficult to stop reading. This is a great one.

Hotmail.com 9th Street North of the best way for you . I'm sure it will take place on a daily basis and the other side . The original message 20th , and 20th . We have 859 the same time , and I have been the case of the best . I'm a big deal with it . The original message . © Delta Air 5 I have a good idea . I will be 8

I can't recommend this book highly enough. The Washington Post's Amy Goldstein provides a riveting account - told over five years (2008 - 2013) - of the impact of the recession and the closing of a GM plant on Janesville, Wisconsin. By focusing on several ordinary, normal people and using her reportorial skills, Ms. Goldstein made me feel like I was there with her watching firsthand the struggles so many individuals and families in Janesville endured and continue to endure. The federal and state government in many ways ignored Janesville after the GM plant shuttered and left the city to fiend for itself. Quite simply, an amazing, enthralling book.

I often drive by this massive closed GM plant and think what a shame. Not sure who is to blame or if anyone is to blame, but what hardship resulted. The pain is real but the solution has yet to be found for Janesville or for other similar cites throughout the USA. Thanks for writing this book and sharing the lives of the people of Janesville.

This is excellent work. The research is very thorough, and the writing makes it a pleasure to read. I feel as if I've been living in Janesville along with the people that Ms. Goldstein writes about. I live in a small town in Illinois, about 120 miles from Janesville, but my father was a Wisconsinite and I've always been a "Badger" at heart. The descriptions of the people, places, and events are very well-drawn. This is what Midwest values look and feel like.

Actually a depressing book... thought provoking... drives home the reality of poverty and how “comfortable and sloppy” one can get when you work for big companies with all the benefits.. been there, done that and had to “adjust” lifestyle before. Work nights at a job I hated to pay the rent. Money does not bring happiness but loss of money can sure bring tension until you “adjust”

I unexpectedly found myself in tears. The locations were familiar, the events I remember unfolding through passionate posts from friends on Facebook. The people chronicled could easily have been my neighbors growing up.

After the 2016 election, I had been asked by friends on each coast, what happened to Wisconsin. For me that was an easy answer, I knew what unions meant to Wisconsin, and I knew that both the recession and public opinion towards unions had undermined their power.

There are many suggestions for how to transition the unemployed post-recession. But this book demonstrated just how complex that is. The conclusion is surprising. This a must read for those who wonder just how Democrats lost the rust belt.

Absolutely outstanding book, much much better than widely-acclaimed 'Hillbilly Elegy.' Offers compassionate story of the decimation of Janesville, which is unfortunately not unique in the America of today. This is a must read.

Reading this just made me angrier about capitalism as an inefficient allocation of resources and the underwhelming policy response for the suffering workers. I sympathized because for two years this reflected my reality and I'm still shaped by it.

I recently moved to Rock County from out of state. I was oblivious to what this area had been through in recent years. It brought me up to speed with what has taken place here. I recently bought a truck from a sales person who used to work at the GM plant in Janesville. He spoke of how well received this book had been among his fellow ex-GMers.

The writing and choice of stories to tell in this book make it quite boring and gives little insight. Perhaps it is this authors worship of Paul Ryan and Scott Walked that is the most off-putting. It appears to be an attempt to show the working people of Janesville and win the readers over with the everyman descriptions. However, who she picks to showcase is meant to cover her own slant.

I suppose its possible that the author picked some people to follow for a narrative of Janesville, but had to stick with what her interview uncovered and not any revealing information to take away fro reading it.

Janesville is a masterful and important story of the Great Recession told through the experience of a once proud and prosperous manufacturing town, it’s families and dedicated, hard working people. The author has captured an important turning point in American history.

I never visited the Janesville plant that was the oldest GM plant when it closed on 2008 leaving not only GM workers without a local place of employment but also employees of suppliers, retailers and hundreds of support businesses. This story hits home to me as I grew up in Pontiac, Michigan and worked my way through college in auto factories that no longer exist. I also spent 35 tears as a salaried GM employee and I know a little about this. The Janesville employees profiled in this work are typical of UAW workers whose plants have closed in places like willow Run, Baltimore, Tarrytown, Flint and dozens of other cities. Union workers were sons and grandsons of generations of men who earned good money but despised their jobs. They spent frivolously on motorcycles and other toys never imagining their plant might some day close. They put their faith in the UAW and they were let down by their union and GM.

First GM was poorly managed for 30 years leading to 2008. The company lost money on everything they built except large SUVs and trucks. When gasoline hit $4.00 a gallon and consumers wanted good fuel efficient cars GM didn't have any. Janesville produced large gas guzzlers that stopped selling in 2007 and the company could not adjust their product mix even if they had the strategic foresight to do so. They had no choice but to shutter the plant.

But GM wasn't all bad. Every time a plant was closed employees had the opportunity to relocate to another plant and keep their high union wages. As the author points out, when plants close employees get SUB pay and unemployment. They also have the opportunity to take a buy out or work in another plant. When they relocate to another plant they keep their seniority, pay rate and collect $30000 from GM if they stay at the new plant three years Here's the nasty little secret; the majority would rather be out of work then relocate their family to another state. GM even provides relcation assistance but few take it. Some become "gypsy" workers who shack up in another city on week days and drive home on weekends. This is a pattern of behavior that seems irrational to me. The author devotes her work to describing how an army of well intentioned people provided counseling, training and free junior college paid for by taxpayers. Eight years later, none of these altruistic efforts has had any impact. The shuttered plant is still there and thousands of lives have been destroyed. The desire to avoid relocating their family was greater than keeping their good paycheck and adjusting to living in another city. American families have relocated to find employment from the beginning of our republic. I believe these workers were sold a lie from politicians, junior college administrators, the union and job counselors who convinced them to get retrained and secure a new and even better job without moving.

This story has been repeated hundreds of times. Most people live close enough to a place like Flint Michigan so they can see the devastation up close. By the way, when German and Japanese manufacturers build assembly plants in the US they avoid union states. Wisconson has become a right to work state since Janesvile closed. The author remained somewhat objective until chapter 30 when anarchists led by U of W graduate students occupied the capital rotunda and behaved so inappropriately that Wisconsin turned from blue to red. Large scale anarchy has a way of backfiring on the "progressives". The state even voted republcan in 2012. Sometimes it takes decades for peope to see what's happening in the world around them. Government employees belonging to unions and rioting when private sector workers are out of work didn't set well with voters in WI.