While there is nothing really new here it is worth reading about how some
people are trying to work and live when the conditions of work are
radically changing.
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Falling Wages and Troubled Lives: Town Stumbles as Economy
Shifts
06/17/2002
The New York Times
SULLIVAN, Ind. -- ''Take time to care,'' says the sign on
the road into this small town in southeastern
Indiana. But time and care seem to be things that people
here and in surrounding Sullivan County have
little left to spare.
''People are so worn out these days, they don't want to run
anything,'' said Paula Followell, 41, a legal
secretary for her husband, Douglas. ''They are busy
scraping together multiple paychecks and
commuting to work.''
Mr. Followell, 56, complained that few people had time to
get involved in the community anymore.
''We don't have any interest from anyone young,'' he said
of the town, which is 100 miles southwest of
Indianapolis and the seat of Sullivan County.
The drop in civic engagement follows an upheaval in work
and wages that has left the town, in the
words of a Sullivan banker, Bruce Walkup, ''flat in the
Dumpster.''
In Sullivan County, population 21,751, men's incomes
dropped 11 percent in the 1990's, according to
the 2000 census. The jobs in strip mining coal, which paid
about $50,000 a year, all but disappeared,
and by the end of the decade, the median men's income here
had fallen to $30,207.
As men's wages have declined, more women have taken jobs to
make ends meet. Fifty-four percent of
adult women now have full-time jobs, up from 46 percent 10
years ago. Their earnings rose
correspondingly in the decade, by nearly 16 percent, to
$20,790, though that still left them making far
less than men.
The figures are similar around the country: men's median
earnings nationwide fell over the last decade
by $889, or 2 percent, to an inflation-adjusted $37,057. At
the same time, women's earnings rose by 7
percent, to $27,194.
The stark result of this shift, people here say, is a
condition in which everyone is a breadwinner and
the whole town loses.
The old town square here, once a center of activity, is a
much quieter place.
''There's no interaction,'' said Bill Tennis, 61, a retired
funeral director whose two grown children have
left Sullivan for Indianapolis. On Friday nights not so
long ago, Mr. Tennis said, ''the stores on the
square would stay open to 8 or 9 o'clock. You'd come to
town, pass the news around.''
Jeff Canfield, 37, pastor of the Word of Life Church on
Court Street, said: ''We had a National Day of
Prayer at the beginning of May at a church on the square.
It was interfaith. We had five clergy. Four
people showed up. We have a difficult time getting people
for children's classes. It's not that people
are bad. It's just priorities.''
Because Chamber of Commerce board members can no longer
make time for evening meetings, they
settled on a May meeting at noon. ''We had 4 of 15 of them
there,'' said Joan Smith, the chamber's
volunteer secretary. As for the Jaycees, the younger men
and women who run the town's September
festival, she said, ''I would say they do not have enough
members now to keep their charter.''
The Optimists and the Women's Club have gone. The Rotary
Club, the Lions Club and the Elks
remain, but they are having trouble attracting new members.
''We are almost nonexistent in volunteer
groups,'' said Jean McMahan, owner of the News Stand, a
lunch counter and magazine store on the
square, and a former city councilwoman.
''The few people who do it can't do it all,'' Mrs. McMahan
said. ''The mothers are so busy, working,
trying to keep clothes clean and meals on the table. They
get home and it's, 'Get out of my hair and let
me get this washing done.' ''
Bruce Ayers, 49, has an old-fashioned, well-paid,
blue-collar job as a laborer for the gas company. His
wife, Debra, 47, is a legal secretary. They have a son,
Justin, 14, and live close to the square in a neatly
kept 1920's house with a big red front porch.
Together they make a little more than $50,000 a year, Mrs.
Ayers said. While she says that she likes
her work and that she is pleased that she can buy her son
everything he needs at J. C. Penney, she has
little spare time for anything more than teaching Sunday
school.
For many people, life has gotten worse. ''More kids are out
running the streets because they cannot
pay a sitter and pay the bills, too,'' said Tina Gourley,
38, a bartender at Runt's Lounge, a dim and
cavernous bar on a corner of the town square. Ms. Gourley,
who is divorced, is raising two daughters,
15 and 10, lately with some support from her ex-husband.
Last year, when she worked the bar's night shift, from 5:30
p.m. to 3:30 a.m., she relied on a woman in
a neighboring trailer to keep an eye on her children.
It didn't work. ''My older daughter couldn't handle the
responsibility of taking care of her sister, plus
taking care of herself,'' said Ms. Gourley, who now works
days. ''So she went wild. She was getting
suspended from school for fighting. She stole a car. They
put her in a juvenile home for a weekend.''
According to the county's circuit court judge, P. J.
Pierson, rising rates of juvenile delinquency and drug
abuse are the result of people working more and spending
less time with their children. ''You have a
responsibility of a parent to teach values,'' he said.
''These must be taught at home, around the kitchen
table.''
Families are breaking up because parents are working too
hard, he said. In 1990, about 7 percent of the
adults in Sullivan County were divorced, according to the
census. By 2000, the number had risen to 12
percent.
To address these problems, Judge Pierson runs a school in
his courtroom every other Saturday morning
for about 20 youths who have been getting in trouble. He
requires them to bring forms from their
teachers noting how they have been doing in school. ''They
remain in the school until all their grades are
up to at least C's or they reach 18,'' Judge Pierson said.
Of course, men whose wages have declined have felt
particular pressure. Though blue-collar, heavy
industry jobs that enabled many men to support a family
have been evaporating for three decades, the
decline from 1989 to 1999 spread beyond jobs in factories,
mills and mines to those in offices, stores,
warehouses and trucking.
Some have turned to the drug business. In the county jail,
half of the 64 inmates in May had been
arrested on charges of making or selling methamphetamine.
''It's an epidemic,'' Sheriff Ed Martindale
said. ''A lot of them are trying to make a living.''
''One was doing $150,000 or $160,000 a year,'' Mr.
Martindale said. ''A lot of them are illiterate. They
can't get a decent job.'' When they raid a family's
methamphetamine lab, his deputies seize the children.
Placement of children in foster care, often with
grandparents, has surged with the rise in drug abuse, he
said.
Others, though, are trying education. ''I made $52,000 a
year mining coal,'' said Walter Burns, 46, who
was nursing a Budweiser in Runt's Lounge. ''I've been going
to college for two years. I'm going to
become different, educated. It's like a two-class system in
this country. You're educated or not.''
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