Plant Closings: Impacts and Responses

Abstract

In this review essay, Terry F. Buss and F. Stevens Redburn dispute many of the reputed impacts of plant closings on workers and their families. They also find that the traditional publicly provided social service programs do not meet the needs of displaced workers. For example, they find that income maintenance programs such as AFDC play a minor role in aiding dislocated workers; that the public employment services play a minor role in helping displaced workers find jobs; that retraining plays a small role in the reemployment of displaced workers; and that mental health services are among the services least often used by displaced workers. Buss and Redburn call for a better targeting of public programs toward people with greater-than-average risk offailure: less-educated or less-experienced people, older workers, the unskilled, minorities, and the handicapped. They also advocate some new ways to meet the health insurance needs of many displaced workers.