As Jobs Vanish, Factory Towns Slow To See Stimulus

JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS

LAMAR, Mo. (AP) — This southwest Missouri city, tucked amid endless fields of winter wheat and soybeans, felt the recession ahead of the rest of the country, when furniture-maker O'Sullivan Industries closed in mid-2007. That threw 700 employees out of work and turned an economic cornerstone into a million-square-foot vacancy.

Thus began what city manager Lynn Calton calls "a slow death." Stores folded. A 50-year-old car dealership went under. One in 10 jobs disappeared last year. Everyone suffered, from the downtown florist to the dentist who cleaned the factory workers' teeth.

Even Mayor Keith Divine filed for unemployment when his furniture store went out of business. He now sells carpet and mattresses and says he hasn't seen evidence of the 640,000 jobs saved or created nationwide thanks to the President Barack Obama's stimulus plan.

"What work? Where?" Divine asks.

Lamar and communities like it, built around dying factories and mills, have been slowest to see relief from the $787 billion stimulus, underscoring how hard it is for Washington policymakers to create lasting work in areas that need it most.