As our economy has changed in recent years, communities have been left behind. Many of them have gone from exporting products to exporting young people as job opportunities erode.
In Claymont, Delaware, a bustling steel mill that was once the beating heart of a large community halted operations in 2013 due to challenging market conditions and an influx of imports. The closure eliminated hundreds of jobs that had sustained families in northern Delaware for nearly a century. And, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, a timber industry that once dominated the region’s economy has seen the combination of automation and dramatic reductions in harvest levels lead to mill closures and thousands of lost jobs.
