The Ripple Effect

How a single layoff reverberates around one community's economy--and why the impact could last for years

By Massimo Calabresi/Roxboro Monday, Sept. 21, 2009
    • Bryan Regan / Wonderful Machine

    When Brian Whitfield, center, lost his job, it affected not just wife Debbie and son Logan but also some fellow citizens.

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    One Lost Job

    Sunday morning in Roxboro. The streets are empty, but the church parking lots are full: it seems as if every one of the town's 8,876 residents is at services. At the United Methodist Church on North Main Street, Pastor T.R. Miller is delivering a sermon titled "Rags to Riches to Rags." At the largely African-American First Baptist Church on the other side of Durham Road, the choir is singing "I'd rather have Jesus than silver and gold" so loudly you can hear it in the parking lot.

    In the second-to-last row of Roxboro Baptist, the Whitfields try to listen to the sermon, but Brian's mind wanders. Last autumn, Debbie warned Brian that the ax might fall. She grew up in Flint, Mich., the granddaughter of a man who participated in the landmark 1936-37 sit-down strike at GM's Fisher body plant that established industrial-labor-organizing rights in America. But she saw her father and uncle go down with the automakers. "When they shut down the Fisher plant [in 1987], everything within a two-to-three-block radius closed down: bars, restaurants, gas stations, banks. Because I lived through the '80s up there in Flint, I just had a feeling that something wasn't right," she says. Since December, Eaton has idled 99 of its 289 Roxboro employees.

    After he lost his job, Brian went to the Roxboro office of North Carolina's Employment Security Commission and met with Roxie Russell, the branch manager. She suggested that he go back to school. Even if Brian could afford it, he doesn't want to start a two-year M.B.A. program only to drop it when a job comes along. He has focused his efforts instead on looking for work, so far without success. He keeps his spirits up by looking after Logan and coaching Little League.

    In the meantime, the family is trying to save. Brian's father, a barber with a shop opposite the courthouse, has some farmland outside of town. Brian planted a garden and takes home vegetables; Debbie calculates that they have shaved $125 a month off their grocery bill, but most of their savings come from other cutbacks. They dropped their membership at the local country club, saving $110 a month. They no longer spend $350 to $400 per month on babysitting now that Brian looks after Logan. Their weekly dinner date? Gone, saving another $175 or so per month.

    The Whitfields aren't the only ones scrimping in Roxboro. Roy Waldron, a pipe fitter, has stopped going out to dinner with his wife Judy since losing his job in February. Tommy Woods, a former forklift operator, says he is collecting aluminum cans to get gas money to drive to job interviews.

    The list goes on: Russell, the elegant, no-nonsense employment-office manager, says traffic to her office increased 13% over the past 12 months. Of the county's 19,510 workers, 2,358 were unemployed as of Aug. 13--a rate of 12%. More cuts may be on the way. Aleris International, a manufacturer of rolled aluminum that employs 149 at its Roxboro plant, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February. Charter Communications, which has 14 working for it in Roxboro, followed suit in March. "People are afraid to spend their money now," says Marcia O'Neil, head of the Roxboro Area Chamber of Commerce.

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