DRIVEN AWAY: How the auto industry lost a generation

The Detriot Free Press reports:

Known by generations of workers for providing high wages and good benefits, Detroit's automakers and parts supplier companies still employ 223,000 Michiganders, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But that's down 79,000, or 26%, from what those companies employed just 10 years ago.

An entire generation of Michiganders has grown up knowing nothing but the decline of the traditional American auto companies -- and the pain that has inflicted on family and friends.

They had their moms laid off. They know the frustration and rejection suffered just to find a job that often paid less than the one that had been lost. They've commiserated with stressed-out buddies whose dads were bounced from office to office or plant to plant in a never-ending struggle to hang on to a job and pay the bills. They've seen the humiliation of a favorite uncle being turned into a contract worker with lower pay, fewer benefits and no job security.

Many want no part of that -- and expect the Detroit car companies want no part of them.

That's a major reason U.S. Census Bureau numbers show far more young, college-educated singles are leaving Michigan than moving in -- 42,600 vs. 26,600 from 1995 to 2000 -- reducing the state's population of that economically crucial group by 16,000, more than in any other state except Pennsylvania.

Trouble in Blue state America.