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MILAN, Ohio — Larry Buckhannon was laid off this month.

His job — where he has worked for 16 years making rubber auto parts— is being moved to Reynosa, Mexico.

His employer will pay someone there $2 an hour instead of $20 to do his job,
while Mr. Buckhannon scours northern Ohio for something else to support his
family.

“The disappointment is overwhelming at first. You have all that time invested in a place and hopes invested so that you can retire,” said Mr. Buckhannon, 44, who lives in Collins, Ohio, in rural Huron County. “I hoped it was something that was going to last.”

Despite a month of life-changing economic events and years of watching 85 percent of the jobs at his factory migrate to Mexico, Mr. Buckhannon remains officially undecided as to how he will vote for president this year.

Forget the Democrats’ populist economic message, he said. “I’ve always voted on my convictions, so I’ve always voted Republican. I’m probably not going to change that view, but I’m still undecided at this point.”

And there, in the thoughts of Mr. Buckhannon and others like him, lies the uphill battle for Democratic plans to turn Ohio from red to blue this election.

Ohio has lost 315,000 manufacturing jobs in eight years, has seen its median family income drop by more than 3 percent, and watched as 330,000 more people slipped into poverty. Yet an extensive study of leading economic indicators by The Blade shows that some Ohio counties fared far worse than others under the two-term administration of President Bush.

ALSO

SEE: Ohio's hardest hit counties graphic

SEE: the Average unemployment database
SEE: the Delinquent Property Taxes database
SEE: the Foreclosure Filings database
SEE: the Manufacturing Employment database
SEE: the Master Comparison database
SEE: the Median Home Sales Price in Ohio database
SEE: the Ohio Bankruptcies database
SEE: the Poverty in Ohio database

And of the 10 counties that fared the worst — where plant closings and falling wages led to increased bankruptcies, foreclosures, and rampant unemployment — nine were in northern Ohio.

The bottom 10, from last place up: Wyandot, Lucas, Crawford, Clark, Sandusky Ashland, Erie, Huron, Defiance, and Cuyahoga.

“We face a number of challenges in the decline of manufacturing,” explained John Magill, chief strategic officer for the Ohio Department of Development. “Here in the Midwest, these are the challenges as we transition into a more global, integrated economy.”

Since President Bush took office in 2001, only one state — Michigan — has had an economy worse than Ohio’s. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, Michigan’s gross domestic product actually shrank by almost 2.5 percent between 2001 and 2007, when adjusted for inflation, the only state in the nation to experience negative growth over that time frame.

Though Ohio’s gross domestic product rose, it grew by 6.3 percent over that period. By comparison, Alaska’s economy led the nation with 43 percent growth in inflation-adjusted GDP, Wyoming was second with a 42 percent growth, and Nevada was third at 41 percent.

Russell Lee says business at his Upper Sandusky store, Pfeifer Hardware, has slowed amid the manufacturing decline in Wyandot County. Many local companies look to him for their supplies.
( THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER )

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A downward spiral
No county in Ohio has fallen as far in the last eight years as has Wyandot County.

Since 2001, the bucolic county roughly halfway between Toledo and Columbus has lost more than 1,800 high-paying, benefit-providing manufacturing jobs, either to a shrinking automotive industry or the ravages of globalization. According to state records, a large portion of those job losses came from just four manufacturers: Blackhawk Automotive Plastics Inc., Continental Structural Plastics, Tower Automotive Inc., and the Toledo-based Dana Holding Corp.

The job losses have put Wyandot County near the top of Ohio’s counties in terms of bankruptcy filings, delinquent property taxes, and unemployment, and near the bottom in terms of manufacturing employment and the median sale price of a single-family home.

Russell Lee has had a front-row seat to the economic changes taking place in Wyandot County. Mr. Lee is the third-generation owner of Pfeifer Hardware, a small store across from the county courthouse in Upper Sandusky, and many local companies look to him for their supplies.

“It’s slow,” he said from behind a counter that hasn’t changed much in 60 years. “We didn’t have an auto plant, but everybody is tied to the auto industry. What’s left is a very small remnant of what it was.”

DATA FOR ANALYSIS CAME FROM SEVERAL SOURCES

Data for The Blade’s study of the economic effects on
Ohio’s counties of the Bush Administration came from a
variety of public and private sources, both on the federal and state levels. Each data set studied contained the most current numbers available in that category.

The sources for the information included the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis;
the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics; the Ohio Department of Taxation; the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofi t policy research organization that tracks economic policy
in Ohio.

The factors studied were federal adjusted growth income; unemployment; foreclosures; manufacturing employment; number of people in poverty; median
sale price for single-family homes; average weekly wages; bankruptcies, and delinquent property taxes.

In each case where measurements were recorded in monetary terms, infl ation adjustments were made to express the changes in current dollars.

Each of nine factors was studied individually, comparing Ohio’s 88 counties against one another and measuring the effects over time. The results were expressed as a percentage of growth or retraction, and the counties ranked in that category, with the highest number being the worst performance and the lowest number being the best.

Those ranks in each category — from 1 to 88 — were then added together for each county, so that the counties with the worst rankings in the individual categories would have the highest overall score. This
final score was then used to determine which counties had fared the worst economically under the Bush Administration, and which had fared the best.

Despite an economy that has worsened over the last eight years under the Bush Administration, voting records in Wyandot County show the majority of residents remain reliably Republican.

In 2000, 62 percent of voters here cast a ballot for George W. Bush over then-Vice President Al Gore. By 2004, support for President Bush fell 9 percent but still allowed him to carry the county by a comfortable 53-46 percent margin over Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

‘Overwhelming’
Not surprisingly for those who live there, Lucas and Cuyahoga counties found their way onto the list of those counties that have struggled most for the last eight years. While these two mostly urban counties share an ignominious distinction, they are on opposite ends of the list, with Lucas County faring worse in far more categories than did Cuyahoga.

Cuyahoga was 79th among Ohio’s 88 counties, largely because of the growth in poverty within Ohio’s most densely populated county. Lucas County fared among the worst because of its growth in unemployment, poverty, and bankruptcy filings. The county that includes Toledo would have grabbed the dubious designation as “worst” except that housing prices never climbed enough to fall very far, as compared to the rest of the state.

Lucas County residents have little trouble seeing signs of the hard times they’re in.

“The economy is so bad, it’s really been overwhelming,” said Steve Seaton, head of support services for the Lucas County Department of Job and Family Services, where those in need can seek help. Last year, county residents received nearly $1 billion in public help from the agency, Mr. Seaton said. “People are flooding in here by the thousands.”

Angelita Sanchez left Toledo for Smyrna, Ga., three years ago in hopes of finding a better life for herself and her three teenage children.

It didn’t work out that way. She came back to Toledo last year and found herself applying for public assistance earlier this month.

“I thought it would be a little better down there, but not really,” she said quietly.

The 38-year-old has a part-time job working as a groundskeeper at the Toledo Zoo, but “I get laid off right before Christmas. That’s tough for a single mom with three kids,” she said, holding back her emotions.

A few feet away at what used to be called the county welfare office, 9-month-old McCauley White sucked hard on his bottle, his straight blond hair clinging to his mother’s shirt as he snuggled into her shoulder.

The young boy seemed happy and carefree, oblivious to his surroundings. But the same could not be said for his mother, who nervously waited in a lobby filled with the poor to ask for public assistance for the first time in her life.

Angelita Sanchez left Toledo for Georgia three years ago in hopes of finding a better life for her family, but she returned last year. She recently applied for public assistance.
( THE BLADE/JETTA FRASER )

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“My fiance and I have an apartment, but we’re having problems just making the rent,” 27-year-old Nichole White said. “I didn’t plan on coming here today, but I’m trying to see if we can get help with day care and [medical] benefits. That’s what we really need.”

A troubled landscape
U.S. 250 starts near the water’s edge in downtown Sandusky and lazily snakes its way south and east through three of the hardest-hit counties in Ohio: Erie, Huron, and Ashland. Along the 60-mile route through the three counties, the road changes dramatically, from a five-lane, restaurant-strewn resort area in Sandusky to a rolling two-lane road where drivers are far more likely to encounter grazing cattle and farm equipment than signs of economic progress.

But one thing drivers will see, despite nearly eight years of economic troubles: lots and lots of McCain-Palin signs.

Heading south, the road slips past the Tenneco factory in Erie County where Mr. Buckhannon and more than 200 others used to work and into Huron County, from which manufacturing jobs are leaving at a frightening rate.

“The majority of the people we see are the downsized,” explained Sue terVeen, a specialist with the Huron County “Jobs Store,” where the unemployed go to change their circumstances.

“We’re seeing every job category — blue-collar and white-collar — and people with 15, 25, 39 years on the job,” Ms. terVeen said as dozens of job candidates waited in line a few feet away to speak with a temp agency.

“People sometimes have a hard time coming to grips with their new reality, that the $25-an-hour jobs that they had are gone, and if they’re lucky, there might be a job out there for them at $12 or $14 an hour.”

Ashland County is a rural area southwest of Lorain that has watched as high-paying jobs fled the area for other countries for the last decade. Mifflin, Ohio, resident Tonya Gregg has had a front-row seat to Ashland’s economic decline. The 43-year-old said she’s closed four factories herself and “watched my father lose his job after 30 years and watched my husband lose his job … after 27 years.” Both she and her husband saw their factories close in 2003.

A THREE-PART SERIES

Today: Ohio has lost 315,000 manufacturing jobs during President Bush’s two terms in office, seen its median family income drop by more than 3 percent, and watched as 330,000 more people slipped into poverty.

Tomorrow: Between 2001 and 2005, about 300,000 Ohioans entered the poverty ranks.
Food banks and those working to aid the poor say the need for assistance has soared in recent months.

Tuesday: With chunks of America’s crumbling economy littering the path to the White House, the legislative records of John McCain and Barack Obama are scrutinized.

“It’s devastating. Thank God we didn’t stretch ourselves thin,” Mrs. Gregg said of the $30,000 in income her family lost in 2004. “That’s the only thing that saved us.”

A domino effect
There is one economic factor that, above all others, ties together the 10 counties at the bottom of economic performance in Ohio since 2001: unemployment. When communities lose jobs — either because they’ve moved to another country or companies have failed altogether — the domino effect on the rest of the local economy can be devastating.

“There are negative feedback effects” to rising unemployment, explained Jim Coons, principal economist with Coons Advisors in Columbus. “Unemployment goes up because the automakers cut back, and that affects the suppliers and the services that they use, and before you know it, it’s showing up in all categories of employment and all sectors of the economy.”

Mr. Coons said that in an economy so dependent on consumer spending, even the threat of rising unemployment can cause consumers to stop spending, which can darken an already weak economic picture.

“People lose their jobs, so they cut back on their spending, and then those businesses see their revenues falling so they stop hiring and stop spending. That’s the negative-feedback loop,” Mr. Coons said.

State figures place the number of unemployed in Ohio at about 445,000 people, or roughly 7.5 percent of those able to work. However, these figures don’t always count those who have given up looking for work altogether because there are few opportunities available.

Consider 24-year-old Christopher Sparks. After a short stint this year in the Marine Corps — he was discharged during basic training because of an injury — Mr. Sparks returned to Defiance County to look for work again as a welder. But there were no jobs to be had, he said.

“I’m trying to find a job, but that’s not flying anywhere,” said Mr. Sparks, who voluntarily surrendered his 2004 Dodge pickup recently when he realized he no longer could make the payments.

“It’s not good. The economy’s bad. It’s real bad,” Mr. Sparks said. “The place I used to work, they’re laying off more people.”

Defiance County, where Mr. Sparks lives, also finished poorly in the economic survey largely because of the lingering effects of a stagnant economy, namely, a dramatic rise in delinquent property taxes. The amount of delinquent property taxes in the county has shot up more than 82 percent, according to the most recent figures from the Ohio Department of Taxation.

As he looks for work and prepares to cast his ballot, Mr. Buckhannon said he hopes that whoever wins in November will help bring jobs back to the United States.

“I would hope, regardless of who becomes president, that they would take away the incentives for American corporations to leave this country,” Mr. Buckhannon said. “I don’t believe that we should throw in the towel. I have hope that things will eventually get better.”

Contact Larry P. Vellequette at:lvellequette@theblade.com or 419-724-6091.

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