Thousands of unemployed wait in lines for buses to a job fair at the Mall of New Hampshire parking lot in Manchester, N.H., last week. The economy is the worst on both coasts. In middle America, there's more hope and optimism.
Last week I took a cross-country business trip from my adopted state of Florida to my native South Dakota to California, where I did much of my World War II Army infantry training.
Across the USA, there still is concern and fear about the depth and length of this depression.
But it’s the worst on both coasts. In middle America, there’s more hope and optimism.
Those attitudes are partly a reflection of these latest unemployment figures:
• California: 10.5 percent
• Florida: 9.4 percent
• South Dakota: 4.6 percent
Those figures alone don’t account for the difference in moods.
Most people on the coasts – especially in big cities – usually shoot for the moon when times are good, and then many fall into the cellar when times get tough. In middle America, the economy generally ranges from the upper to lower-middle, but seldom hits the top or tanks.
My field of newspapering reflects that. On both coasts, many newspapers are in trouble. In between, many are doing very well.
Two examples of the latter reflected in a downbeat national convention of the Newspaper Association of America in San Diego last week:
• Bill Marcil of Fargo, N.D. He said, with some necessary staff reductions at “The Forum,” the company, which includes 11 daily newspapers in North Dakota and Minnesota, is having “one of our best years ever.”
• Walter Hussman of Little Rock. He’s famous for having driven the competing big Gannett Co., which I formerly headed, out of town. He now is doing very well with his expanding media group, which includes 12 daily newspapers.
Some of us on the coasts could ease our problems in future bad times if we became a little less ambitious or greedy in good times. I was guilty of the latter 20 to 30 years ago.
Al Neuharth is founder of USA TODAY.
———
Feedback
“No one should be jobless. Rather than dwell on that, we’re focusing our efforts on getting people retrained or back to work now.”
- South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds
“The manufacturing-concentrated states located in the northeast part of the Midwest have been hit as hard or harder than the East and West Coast states.”
– Paul M. LaPorte, economist in Chicago office, Bureau of Labor Statistics