Blue-Collar America Braces for Another Devastating Recession
Manufacturing takes more of a beating in downturns than other sectors—and it’s still scarred from the last one.
U.S. Steel, Lone Star, Texas.
Photographer: Misty Keasler for Bloomberg BusinessweekLocated a little over two hours due east of Dallas toward the border with Louisiana and a world away from the bustle of New York—or Wuhan—Lone Star is a pocket of rural Texas that’s so far managed mostly to avoid the Covid-19 outbreak. According to state data, just one case had been reported in all of Morris County as of April 1. The town, which has a population of about 1,700, isn’t doing as great a job, though, of escaping the impact of a U.S. economy tumbling into what threatens to be the deepest recession in generations.
Faced with declining orders and no clear idea of when things might change, United States Steel Corp. informed state authorities on March 23 that it plans to shut down its mill in Lone Star in May, putting many, if not all, of the 600 employees out of work. The facility turns out steel pipe for an oil industry that’s retrenching in response to a sudden collapse in crude prices.