Job Losses, Economic Realities Hit Home in Indiana City

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• JIM LEHRER:

  Now a report on the job losses in Elkhart, Indiana. It's part of NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman's series on making sense of financial news. Paul was in Elkhart earlier this week.

  BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: It is good to be back in Elkhart.

• PAUL SOLMAN, NewsHour Economics Correspondent:

  President Obama may be one of the few at the moment who can make this statement. Last month's trip to Elkhart, Indiana, was to sell job creation by way of his stimulus package against a backdrop of despair.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  When we say that this area has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in the United States of America, with an unemployment rate of over 15 percent when it was 4.7 percent just last year, we're not just talking numbers. We're talking about Ed.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  Ed Neufeldt, who voted for John McCain, was laid off in the fall.

• ED NEUFELDT:

  Two of my daughters and two of my son-in-laws are also unemployed. I know that Elkhart County has the highest unemployment rate in the country, but I know we don't want to be there. We want to work.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  Neufeldt's daughters, Brandy and Lisa, and their mates home with the kids, daughter Lori, and her husband, Josh Gaut, Josh's mom, Lucinda, and dad, Don, have all lost their jobs.

• LISA NEUFELDT:

  So I've been out of work for a little over a year.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  Or are woefully underemployed.

• LORI GAUT:

  When it gets bad, I'm maybe down to five hours a week.

• LISA NEUFELDT:

  So I got lucky and got a part-time job working with Lewis Bakeries, stocking bread. That's a good thing. At least people still need to buy bread, so…

• JOSH GAUT:

  I went through a stretch where, from Thanksgiving to February, I didn't work at all. And it looks now that we'll probably be getting more time off in the future.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  Lucinda Gaut had a job when we arranged this interview, but by the time we set up our camera, she'd lost it.

• LUCINDA GAUT:

  And Thursday was my last day.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is terrified and 1 everything's OK, where are you?

• LUCINDA GAUT:

  Probably terrified. I don't know.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  And perhaps laughing to keep from crying. Her husband says his faith keeps him going, though he lost his job in April.

  Looking?

• DON GAUT:

  Yes.

• PAUL SOLMAN:

  Finding anything?

• DON GAUT:

  No, there's nothing around here. There's no jobs.

• ED NEUFELDT:

  They've got a dollar store right down the road here and pay $6.50 an hour. They're not even hiring, so there's nothing out there at all.