When Summer Sellers lost her job and couldn’t pay her mortgage, she refused to give in to the recession.

"Every day is tough," said Sellers, of Elkhart, Ind. "But in and through this downturn, I’ve learned a lot of different things that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise."

Some of her difficult moments: "I lost a great job, but I was lucky to find another one. I cashed out my 401(k)and played catch-up with my bills. I didn’t want to lose my home. I knew I had to keep hanging onto my life’s major investment. My boyfriend and my mom helped me out with that. I couldn't have done it without them. And for that, I'm thankful."

When faced with challenge, millions of Americans like Sellers have looked for a silver lining.

Denise Keeler of Flint, Mich., found one.

"My family’s health has been the biggest blessing," said the mother of two boys, ages 6 and 4.

Keeler has watched family and friends struggle to find work in a state where the unemployment rate has hit 15 percent. She has hugged and cried with neighbors who were forced to leave their neighborhood after banks foreclosed on homes.

"The money you would spend on silly things can now go to helping a family," she says. "I am so thankful I can give — even it is $10."

Now, we want to hear from you. Did you find more faith, grow closer to your family or your community? Send us your story, along with a photo or video, for a Thanksgiving special report.

I keep hearing that the country is recovering well from the recession. That is not the case in my town or in my own family for that matter. I was laid off in February and still havent found a job. I have two uncle that were laid off last October that are still without work, and now my husband had to take a 25% pay cut in order to keep his job. We are trying to remodify our mortgage, but this DESTROYS your credit, thus credit companies have jacked up our interest rates to 30%. How is a family supposed to stay afloat? I have a 20 month old and an due to delivery another child in dec. I have to go to the food pantry and still don't have enough for diapers. My husband and i have cut everything that we can and even with the loan modification program still may lose our home. so I ask, what recovery? More likely, the polls are skewed because they do not count the millions of people who are still out of work, losing everything thaey have worked so hard for, and now out of unemployment benefits as well. Let's be real and report the truth. This country is not a place to be if you are a working class person.

ELKHART, Ind. - In a massive makeover of the U.S. work force, hundreds of thousands of laid-off Americans are undergoing federally subsidized retraining designed to provide them with the skills and education to land new jobs.

For some, it already feels like an exercise in futility.

“I’ve tried and tried (to find work) and it’s discouraging,” said Jama Eisman, 49, of Elkhart, Ind., a laid-off recreational vehicle worker and single mom who has been looking for a job — any job — since she graduated from a six-month information technology program in early August. “... A lot of places they have signs on the doors saying they’re not even accepting applications.”

While looking for work in economically battered northern Indiana is especially daunting, Eisman’s story underscores the high stakes riding on the retraining initiative for workers and for the nation.

Eisman said she fears she will lose the home she shares with her three sons — D.J., an 18-year-old high school senior, Michael, 15, and Eric, 11 — when her unemployment benefits expire on Nov. 1, unless Congress passes another extension.

“My child support pays for my house payment, and I pay for everything else,” the divorced former factory worker said. “I won’t make it.”

Many thousands of laid-off workers have found work during the recession after being trained in new occupations. But thousands of others are finding it can be difficult to hit a moving target when jobs are still shifting and vanishing.

And the complexities of the sprawling retraining program go well beyond forecasting the job market.

Fundamental questions are being raised about retraining, even as it has quietly emerged as a linchpin in the federal government’s recession-fighting strategy. Chief among them: Do retooled workers fare better in their searches or land better jobs than those who spend their time hitting the bricks and knocking on doors?

Like many other aspects of the retraining program, the answer is far from clear.

The Labor Department and other supporters say the effort is critical to help the U.S. pull out of the recession and produce a skilled work force capable of holding its own against foreign competition.

But critics say the retraining program, created by the 1998 Workforce Investment Act (WIA), is run by a tangled bureaucracy and actually makes little, if any, difference in helping laid-off workers reassemble their lives.

‘It's ... a morass’
“It’s really a morass,” said Joe DiLaura, a former spokesman for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development now with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice in Indianapolis. “It’s not anything Indiana officials are doing. It’s the way the federal business is set up. Congress pours a boatload of money into a convoluted system of regional work force boards, which means a lot of staff and a lot of overhead. It’s well meaning, but I don’t know that it’s really getting the job done.”

Labor Department data show that 258,000 American workers have been retrained in the past two years under the WIA’s Dislocated Worker Program — the main aid program under which workers return to school to pursue new careers.

Overall, the program provided some type of service, ranging from career counseling to retraining, to 666,313 jobless workers in fiscal 2008 — a 66 percent increase over the previous year.

Funding for the Dislocated Worker Program has been on a similarly steep ascent. Nearly $3 billion was budgeted for fiscal 2009, including extra funding for retraining included in President Barack Obama’s federal stimulus package.

Tens of thousands of other jobless Americans receive retraining benefits under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps workers who lost jobs due to global trade, or National Emergency Grants designed to help workers in a hard-hit region or industry.

“Workforce Investment Act training gets dislocated workers back into the work force more quickly than their peers who do not take part in such programs,” Jane Oates, assistant secretary of labor for employment and training, said in a statement provided to msnbc.com. “This fact does not, however, prevent us from striving to continuously improve publicly funded work force programs to maximize the return on these investments.”

The department also cites statistics indicating that retrained workers on average made 104 percent of their pre-training earnings in fiscal 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Study finds little benefit
But a study commissioned by the Labor Department and released without fanfare in December reached the opposite conclusion, finding that retraining does not significantly improve earning power.

Co-author Kenneth R. Troske, chairman of the Economics Department at the University of Kentucky, said the discrepancy exists because the government compares the workers’ earnings immediately prior to entering retraining — after they have lost their jobs or suffered some other employment setback — to their paychecks after completing their courses and finding work. He and his fellow researchers, on the other hand, looked at how workers in 12 states who underwent retraining fared when compared with similar jobless workers who didn’t.

Their findings were disheartening. “Those who enter training experience large earnings losses relative to those who do not in their first two years after program entry,” the study found.

Earnings of retrained workers eventually did overtake those of non-participants, but even then, “The gains from participation are, at best, very modest,” it said.

Troske said the biggest reason retrained workers lag behind is simple: “When you’re participating in the program, it’s harder to find a job than someone who isn’t. Even if you’re not being charged tuition, you’re still giving up the opportunity to do meaningful work.”

But Teresa Voors, the commissioner of Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development, said that workers are approved for retraining only after other options for getting them back to work have been explored.

“The process isn’t necessarily about getting them into retraining; it’s about helping them find the proper career path,” she said. “That could be as simple as helping them rewrite their résumé, getting them on our Web site and helping them find a job, getting them started networking to find another job or maybe enrolled in a few workshops.”

Voors speaks from considerable experience.

The WIA-funded program administered by her department has seen a huge surge in demand for training and other services, which also are provided to disadvantaged youth and adult workers. The program has grown more than sevenfold in three years, skyrocketing from 39,001 participants in fiscal 2006 to 296,477 in fiscal 2008. In fiscal 2007, the most recent year for which spending figures are available, the department spent $117 million to provide services to 101,616 workers, or about $1,150 apiece.

A significant portion of that demand springs from Elkhart County, the heart of the RV industry. With an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent — well above the national average of 9.7 percent — the county has yet to see signs of the economic recovery that many economists say is beginning to take root.

When the layoffs were at their peak late last year, local WorkOne centers were frequently scenes of chaos and frustration.

Vicki McGlinsey, 42, who worked for an RV supply company before losing her job, said it took her six full months to get approved for retraining. The process was so aggravating that, at one point, after being told to return for yet another appointment, “I sat in the living room and bawled,” she said.

After the contractor responsible for running the centers was replaced, the situation improved, said McGlinsey, who is now retraining for a career as a computer technician at the commercial Maple Training school in Goshen.

She is one of thousands of laid-off workers in Elkhart County who have settled into retraining routines, and are busily learning the ropes for a wide variety of jobs — everything from operating computerized manufacturing machinery and repairing computers to providing medical care and styling hair and applying makeup.

Among them are approximately 1,100 RV workers who entered programs under a $10.4 million National Emergency Grant from the Labor Department. Of those, 300 are pursuing associate degrees, 700 are seeking vocational certifications and more than 100 are in programs leading to a professional license, according to a breakdown provided the state.

Their chosen new careers: 250 are training in IT; 240 in health care; 220 in advanced manufacturing disciplines; 100 as commercial drivers; 85 in business or accounting; 28 in heating and air conditioning; 17 paralegals; and the remainder in niche fields.

Denise Sexton, 41, of Elkhart, is one of the many former RV workers who is pursuing a medical career, banking that surgical assistants will still be in demand when she completes the two-year certification program. 

But with her jobless benefits due to end in January, her husband working only part-time delivering RVs and their savings nearly gone, Sexton is mapping out her education like a military campaign, examining every possible option to ensure that she can finish.

“The way it looks right now, I’ll have to work a part-time job somewhere,” she said. “I’m in the process of applying for a Pell Grant … It’s either get some grant money somewhere or take a loan out.”

Sexton, who has maintained a straight A average so far, says failure is not an option.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get through school,” she said. “I’m not giving up my degree.”

Even if she does obtain the certification and can find a job, there are no guarantees it will be in a surgery room.

Indiana's most recent WIA report to the Labor Department indicated that almost half of the workers who completed retraining and found work did so in other fields.

And until the local economy improves, retrained workers will likely have a difficult time finding jobs no matter what new skills they have picked up, said Grant Black, an economist at Indiana University, South Bend.

Black said Elkhart County is continuing to shed jobs across virtually every employment sector, notwithstanding recent declines in its unemployment rate, which he attributes to a shrinking labor force rather than job creation. He said it's unclear whether the smaller work force is due to people leaving the area or giving up looking for work.

“I think even if you had perfectly trained people, where are they going to go?” he said.

That’s one of the questions that case workers with Indiana’s WorkOne program attempt to answer before approving retraining plans. But it’s hard to predict when specific industries will begin growing again, and how many jobs they might create, said Dwight Grieser, a Goshen businessman who sits on the Northern Indiana Workforce Board, overseeing Elkhart County and the surrounding region.

“I know that at our board meetings, that question always comes up and people always wonder, ‘What’s needed in Elkhart County? What’s needed in St. Joseph County ... if they’re willing to drive 40 miles to get a job?’” he said.

The lack of accurate forecasts can have serious consequences. Travis Wagner, 31, a laid-off RV worker from Freeman, Ind., discovered that after signing up for a one-year advanced manufacturing program — a field identified by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels as having "a lot of great jobs waiting" in September, when he announced the grant for retraining RV workers.

Now Wagner said he’s “less and less” confident he’ll be able to find work with one of the local orthopedics manufacturers the program is designed to support. That's because former RV workers have flooded classes at the same time the companies have been announcing layoffs, he said.

But Thomas Snyder, president of Indiana’s statewide Ivy Tech Community College system, which runs the manufacturing program, said graduates will emerge with “transferable skills” that can be applied to many occupations, not just building artificial joints.

And longer term, he said, such training is critical to efforts to “re-engineer Indiana” as a manufacturing state with a highly skilled work force. “If we lose this industry, it would not be to another state,” he added ominously.

Louis Uchitelle, a New York Times labor reporter and author of the book “The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences,” scoffs at such arguments.

He says retraining ignores the decreasing demand for certain occupations — especially in manufacturing — as jobs continue to disappear overseas.

“It’s a supply-side approach,” he said. “People are told that there are good jobs out there and it’s incumbent on them to acquire those skills to land those jobs. That was never the case, even in the salad days of job creation, and it certainly isn’t the case now.”

Meanwhile, as the retraining debate continues in classrooms, boardrooms and government offices, the jobless of Elkhart County are making decisions upon which their future well-being will hang.

Some have retrained for a new job only to return to the relative security of work in the cyclical RV industry.

Among them is Adrian Jimenez, a 30-year-old RV worker from Bremen, Ind., who received certification as an operator of CNC (computer numerical controlled) machines after completing a six-month course at Ivy Tech. But with no job offers after several months and a second child on the way, he couldn’t say no when his former employer, Monaco Coach, offered him his job back on the factory floor.

"I really never got to use my training at all," he said, adding that he is instead lining up side jobs as a Spanish-English translator, just in case.

Others, like Kevin Avery of Mishwaka, are taking the cautious approach.

Avery, who lost his job making glucometers for Bayer in April, is carefully analyzing the job market before deciding where to cast his retraining lot. He has that luxury because he had a union job and will continue to receive severance payments until mid-December.

“At my age, you’ve got to find something in demand,” he said. “I’ll be 56 in January, so what can you get in a year or two that will give you another 10 years of work? Whatever you decide, it’s got to be something you can walk out of the training and into a job.”

Still others are preparing for new careers in which, assuming they find work, they will make much less than they did before.

Cindy Koehler of Elkhart, who worked as a saleswoman for an RV supplier, is now training for a career as a cosmetologist at the Vogue Beauty in College in Elkhart. According to state statistics, cosmetologists in Indiana earn a mean hourly salary of $9.97, or $2.52 an hour above the state’s minimum wage.

That’s not a big concern for Koehler, who expects to graduate in December after her 10-month training, because she expects to have increased job satisfaction.

“I’m a people person, and I really like the way it makes me feel when I make someone feel better about themselves,” she said.

J. Tyler Klassen / Elkhart Truth

Visitors watch the unveiling of the new Electric Motors Corp. electric-hybrid truck in Wakarusa, Ind., on Saturday, Sept. 5.

With a theatrical flourish, the fledgling Electric Motors Corp. this weekend unveiled the prototype of the hybrid truck that it hopes to will put hundreds of workers in hard-hit northern Indiana to work.

Inspired by train design, the truck -- a Ford F150 chassis with a streamlined cab and an electric-gasoline hybrid engine -- has been christened the Flash. A second model, a utility vehicle that the company hopes to sell for commercial applications, will be known as the Thunderbolt, CEO Wil Cashen told the crowd at Saturday’s unveiling at what organizers dubbed the Green Jobs for America Entertainment and Education Expo.

Click here to read the Elkhart Truth’s coverage of the event and see more photos of the vehicle.

EMC, which is partnering with Gulf Stream Coach to build the hybrid trucks, is still waiting to hear whether it will receive grants from the U.S. Energy Department to jump start the project. That decision is expected in the next couple weeks, the Truth reported last week, quoting Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly.

The companies have not set a firm date for starting production, but Lou Bonacorsi, EMC's director of education, told msnbc.com recently that the company hopes to begin "abbreviated production" by March 2010.

ELKHART, Ind. - Karen Inbody has just about three weeks to figure out Plan B.

The 58-year-old divorcee has been getting by on unemployment compensation since her layoff in early 2008, but she’s nearly reached the end of her benefits.

And even though she's applied for dozens of jobs, the former rental property manager has come up empty.

“I’d shovel horse poop,” she says wearily. “I haven’t even found one of those jobs available.”

Now, like many others whose unemployment benefits are running out, the Elkhart, Ind., native doesn’t know how she’s going to put food on her table and pay her mortgage.

Coming tsunami
Despite repeated extensions of the unemployment compensation program — up to a record 79 weeks in many states, compared to the standard 26 weeks in normal times — some 1.5 million people are expected to exhaust their benefits by year’s end.

In the first big wave, some 540,000 are expected to fall out of the program by the end of September, according to the nonprofit National Employment Law Project.

“Every state is going to experience a substantial increase in people exhausting their benefits,” says Chris Owen, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based worker advocacy group. “That means more people who will not be able to pay their mortgages, and who will not be able to shop and buy things. It will be a blow for the national economy, and for state and local economies.”

For many in this situation, there are few obvious places to turn. Short of qualifying for another government program, most rely on family and friends, and draw on the help of churches and nonprofits that run food pantries and assist with other emergency needs.

Mowing for gas money
Elkhart resident Tim White, who was laid off from a $10 per hour job at a laminates factory last year, saw his final unemployment check in mid-July.

Now the 42-year-old father earns $25 a week mowing a friend’s lawn — enough to cover gas for his '97 Jeep Cherokee so he can drive around to look for jobs. He says he applies anywhere they are accepting applications – McDonald’s, Jiffy Lube, KFC, or Goodwill — to name just a few.

"I don't care if it's a minimum wage job,” he says. “It's better than nothing.”

For lodging, White and his wife, Prima, and their 13-year-old daughter, Kelly, have been getting by with the help of a relative who lets them live rent-free. The family also started receiving food stamps worth about $300 a month in August.

White’s wife is in poor health and takes medications for high blood pressure, diabetes and other problems. He is tormented by the prospect she could have a medical emergency with no health insurance.

"Health care coverage we worry about every day," he said.

Food pantry
Dean Preheim-Bartel, executive director of Church Community Services, which operates one of the larger food pantries in Elkhart, says he’s been seeing more and more people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits. It is one of the reasons, he believes, that in July, a record 345 new clients showed up to get free provisions for their families, compared to 179 new clients in July last year ago.

“There are a lot of people who are first timers who will readily acknowledge they have never been to a place like this -- never been to a food pantry of any kind,” he says.

Once laid-off workers exhaust their unemployment benefits, other sources of government assistance are relatively scant. TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is available to very low-income or unemployed people with children. But the requirements are far stricter than those for unemployment compensation.

(Discuss: Laid-off workers eye the abyss)

“You have to have very low wealth to get TANF benefits. So it’s not practical thing for most middle-class families,” says Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

Childless people have even fewer options.

“If you have no kids, then you’re at the tender mercy of whatever state program there is,” says Burtless. “In a lot of places, it’s just not very much money, and they can deny people benefits for a lot of reasons.”

Likewise, food stamps are generally available only to the poorest of the poor.

Handywoman
Becky Cutter, who lives in rural Elkhart County, received her final unemployment payout on June 28. She was laid off in February 2008 from her job at Stallion Coach, a small company in nearby Bristol that converts horse trailers into living quarters.

Her unemployment checks were modest — an average of $182.50 a week after taxes — but they kept her afloat for 15 months while she looked for a new job. She says she applied for dozens of positions in customer service, restaurant management, waiting tables, even as a speedway manager — and was amazed when nothing panned out.

Now, she tries to maintain a can-do spirit and accepts whatever small jobs come her way.

“Basically, I’ve turned into a handywoman,” she says, picking up $25 here and $100 there doing everything from painting and cleaning rain gutters to dog grooming. “I’ve been amazed at the things I can do. I’ve learned to drive a scissor lift and got over my fear of heights.”

Cutter is fortunate that her landlord has agreed to let her remain in the farm house where she lives, doing maintenance instead of paying rent. She still has a horse that she says she’ll have to sell to raise a little cash.

In the meantime, it’s a shoestring existence as she continues to send out resumes. Trips to the food pantry and gifts from friends and neighbors have helped fill the gaps.

Positive signs, but few jobs
Despite some recent signs that the unemployment situation is improving, the odds of actually getting a new job are grim.

Federal statistics indicate that there were more than five times as many people seeking jobs in the United States in June as there were positions available. In especially hard-hit areas like Elkhart, where the unemployment rate is 16.7 percent — compared to 9.4 percent nationwide — the odds against job seekers are even tougher.

Vicki McGlinsey, who was laid off last year from a printing company that served the RV industry, says she was one of 10 people who made the final round of interviews for a security position offered at Wal-Mart in July. The manager who broke the news that she wouldn’t get the job told her they received more than 250 applications.

“I myself have put in about 100 applications and résumés since February … and have had three interview opportunities, including this one,” she says. “It boggles my mind when I hear people say we just need to try harder.”

To aid people like McGlinsey, political pressure is building for the passage of yet another extension of unemployment benefits, at least for the jobless in states hardest hit by the recession.

In early August, just before Congress left for a break, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., introduced a bill that would provide another 13 weeks of federally funded unemployment benefits to workers in states with a three-month jobless rate over 9.5 percent — likely encompassing about 20 states.

The bill is expected to be taken up when Congress returns after Labor Day.

Opponents of an extension argue that increasing the benefit duration will simply prolong unemployment, allowing workers to get “rusty,” possibly unemployable. Those in favor maintain that the help is essential to these individuals until the employment picture improves and that the jobless funds help stimulate the economy.

Weighing options
With the clock running out on her benefits, Karen Inbody is weighing her options.

She’s already borrowed some money from her family, and does not want to ask for more — two of her sons are receiving unemployment benefits after being laid-off from the RV industry, and two are working reduced hours.

Inbody owes $600 a month on her house, a simple gray bungalow on Elkhart’s historic Bank Street. She fears that without some new source of income, she will lose it.

“Sell my house, rent out my house?” she says, running through some scenarios. She adds wryly: “I could stand on a street corner, but those are all taken too.”

As classes started throughout the Elkhart area on Tuesday, thousands of needy students were able to begin the new year armed with fresh supplies, new backpacks, and newly coiffed hair--in a kick off orchestrated by a dozen organizations and scores of volunteers.

A line that stretched four blocks--some 5,500 people in total reportedly attended the Back-2-School Unity Festival at a local high school on Saturday, to take part in the charity event put on by local government departments, nonprofits, and churches. Organizers estimated that about 10 percent of Elkhart's population was served in the six hours of the festival.

As an editorial in Tuesday's Elkhart Truth put it, the first-time event "continues to show how this community can rally together to help its own."

Middlebury, Ind. - The roar of power tools fills the air as workers jog across the cramped and busy floor of the Jayco recreational vehicle factory, hustling to complete the labor-intensive task of building a travel trailer.

The scene could resemble any U.S. factory save for one thing. Here, as at many RV makers and suppliers in Elkhart and neighboring LaGrange County, members of the local Amish community work side-by-side with the non-Amish, handling power tools, driving forklifts and operating machinery with a speed and comfort level that seem at odds with their traditional dress and long beards.

For decades, even as members of this Amish community in northern Indiana have tended to small family farms, sewed their own clothing and traveled by horse and buggy, economic necessity has forced an increasing number to make their living by working for the RV makers and suppliers that dominate the landscape, and economy, here.

An estimated 53 percent of the area’s Amish men under age 65 were working in factories as of 2002, according to Steven Nolt and Thomas J. Meyers, academics at nearby Goshen College who have written extensively about the Amish.

Now, a severe downturn in the RV industry has pushed hundreds of Amish people out of the factories, forcing some to pursue more traditional — but often less lucrative — work such as baking, woodworking, making jam and selling homegrown produce.

But despite the loss of jobs and income, many in the Amish community here say they see the recession as a blessing, because it has caused them to refocus on the key principles of their community: family and faith.

“I think maybe that’s what the good Lord’s trying to teach us,” said Cletus Lambright, whose business, Lambright Woodworking, has seen a big drop in demand for custom-made cabinets and other items. “Family values should never be pushed aside.”

In a community that tends toward large families, the lack of factory jobs also has brought some men back into home-based businesses, where they can be closer to their children and where their work is more ingrained in family life.

Factory work is “not conducive to the family life,” said Chris Miller, a deacon in the Amish church who also runs Creekside Bookstore, a Shipshewana business that caters primarily to the Amish. “It takes away from our values.”

The recession also is forcing many to rediscover a tradition of living simply and frugally, which some say had fallen away in recent years as people here grew used to the high salaries of factory work.

The signs of this economic shift abound. Around the two counties, residents say they have seen a dramatic increase in signs advertising things like eggs or produce, while longtime Amish business owners say they are fielding many questions from people seeking to start similar enterprises.

In the small town of Middlebury, a farmer’s market has sprung up featuring Amish and non-Amish vendors, while massive Shipshewana Auction and Flea Market nearby also is attracting more interest from Amish sellers.

Dean R. Miller, senior vice president at First State Bank in Middlebury, said he’s seeing more Amish entrepreneurs applying for business loans.

“The Amish families definitely aren’t ones to sit back and wait for something to happen,” he said.

Financial struggles
But even as more Amish people go into business for themselves, many here say that traditional Amish businesses also are suffering because of the recession. The downturn has crimped demand for items such as hand-made cabinets and metalwork and even has caused some longtime Amish businesses to lay off workers.

Experts say Amish businesses elsewhere in the country are suffering as well. There are an estimated 233,000 Amish people living in 27 states and the Canadian province of Ontario, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

Some in the Amish community, which tends to eschew much modern technology, are now grappling with ways to boost business in a world that is increasingly dependent on e-mail and Web sites.

“We went from being order-takers to being marketers,” said Lambright, the furniture maker.

The drop in both home-based and factory work also has been hard for many Amish families, who like many other Americans are struggling to pay their mortgages, feed their children and provide for basic needs amid the worst recession in decades.

Some in this northern Indiana community, one of the nation’s largest Amish settlements, have even accepted unemployment benefits, a big step for a sect that traditionally has shunned public benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The Amish community also has a tradition of helping each other with medical and other expenses, but that can be a challenge when so many families are struggling at once.

“I still think that one of the great assets that we have is that (we want) to help each other in hard times,” said Lambright. “I just don’t want to see that lost.”

Another hallmark of the community that seems to have served them well in this recession is an extremely strong work ethic.

“Of all the people that got laid off, I can’t think of one Amish person I know that is out of a job and is at a place where he doesn’t know what to do,” said Ray Troyer, a deacon in the Amish church who works at Yoder’s Hardware in Shipshewana.

Donuts and baseball bats
Wilbur Lehman has worked on and off in factories for years, most recently until he was laid off last November. Since the layoff, he has been making baseball bats in his wood shop and working to expand his wife’s small donut-making business.

Using his skills from factory work, he and his wife recently purchased and retrofitted a small RV, which they are using to make and sell the donuts at the flea market and other locations.

Lehman said he prefers working for himself because he can be his own boss, but he concedes the factory work offers a financial stability that his own businesses can’t. Still, in a community that values frugality, he thinks there has been a broader benefit to people earning less.

“In some ways it was good that the factory (work) went down because there was a lot of money spent freely,” he said.

His wife, Lizzie Lehman, says she has watched some struggle with the change in fortunes.

“Some people turned bitter,” she said. “We’d like to see it that they turned better (rather) than bitter.”

When the RV industry was roaring, Amish say workers could bring home between $50,000 and $100,000 from a factory job, far more than they might make farming or running a business.

With all that discretionary income, it became commonplace for many to hire non-Amish drivers to take them on shopping trips to Wal-Mart or other area stores. The relatively high wages of factory work also gave them enough financial flexibility to regularly eat out at restaurants, take vacations and even buy things, such as clothing, that they traditionally made at home.

Many of those workers have seen their fortunes change dramatically as the RV industry has fallen victim to the recession and credit crunch. Total RV shipments were down 55 percent for the first six months of 2009, compared with the first half of 2008, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association.

The Jayco plant, one of several in the area that has a substantial Amish workforce, has been able to hire back about 120 workers this summer because of a seasonal increase in business. But the total work force is still just around 1,300 now, compared with a peak of about 2,400.

“We all tend to be too comfortable with the next paycheck and we all grow too fat,” said Harvey Bontrager, an Amish father of 10 who worked in the factories for 10 years before leaving more than 20 years ago to start his own flower and food business. “We failed to teach our children what the value of money is, and we let money govern us rather than us governing money.”

Miller, the owner of Creekside Bookstore in Shipshewana, said he has been seeing more young Amish women come in looking for material rather than ready-made clothes — a sign, he hopes, that some are rediscovering a simpler way of life that is key to the community.

“It brings us back to where our food and clothes and stuff comes from,” Miller said.

But even as he celebrates such changes, Miller concedes that the recession has hurt business at his store.

“It’s been tough, but then it’s been tough for everybody,” he said.

No longer able to rely on farming
The Amish community in Elkhart and LaGrange counties is unusual in that so many of its members have turned to factory work primarily in one industry, said Donald Kraybill, senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies and an expert on Amish life.

But as farmland has grown more scarce and expensive, and their traditional farming methods have hampered their ability to compete, many Amish across the country have turned to other work.

These days, Kraybill estimates that more than half of Amish households nationwide receive their primary income from non-farm sources.  Some have gone to work for non-Amish people, whom they refer to as “English,” while others have started their own carpentry, welding and other cottage industries.

“It’s not like they’re insulated or isolated from the larger economy,” Kraybill said. “They are not self-sufficient. They’re buying and selling in the larger marketplace.”

Even as they’ve become more ingrained in the English business world, most Amish communities have held onto their faith-based traditions, including a conservative style of dress and a belief that education should stop at eighth grade.

Many Amish people are comfortable using technology such as power tools or riding lawn mowers when working for others, Kraybill said. They also have adapted some modern technology, such as telephones or propane-powered light fixtures, for their own businesses.

In addition, it’s very common to use non-Amish vehicles and drivers to take them to stores, faraway jobs or other places. But Kraybill said they generally shy away from owning things such as computers, and for the most part they will not use the conventional power grid.

Experts say that as the Amish community has become increasingly ingrained in the professional world outside of their community, it has inevitably affected their everyday lives.

“They’ve kept the boundary between their world and the English world, but they’ve changed the way they lived,” said Meyers, the Goshen College sociology professor, who has studied the Amish extensively.

But, Meyers said, the acceptance of new technology has come only after much reflection about what it will mean for their faith and family life.

“The Amish are constantly asking the question of what changes imply,” he said.

New ways of doing business
Now, some in the Elkhart and LaGrange county Amish community say even more change is necessary if they are to stay competitive.

Freeman Miller, who runs F&N Woodworking and heads up an Amish woodworking association, said he had around 20 new exhibitors show their furniture at an annual Amish exhibition this year, for a total of 87 vendors.

Hoping to drum up more wholesale business, he’s been trying to band the woodworkers together so they can offer all their chairs, tables and other furniture as a package.

Miller also is trying to figure out ways to better market Amish wood products in an increasingly Internet-connected world. Recently, he began working with a non-Amish sales team that is able to use modern technology he wouldn’t feel comfortable using himself. He’s even recommending that members of the community attend professional development lectures to improve their business acumen.

“Too many people want to go on with life the way we’ve always done it,” he said.

For some, business is booming
Although the recession has taken a toll on many Amish businesses, some are finding that business is booming despite the hard economic times. But that, too, presents its own challenges.

Recently, the owners of the Amish-run Rise 'n' Roll Bakery decided to sell their business to non-Amish investors so they could expand the food offerings and use electricity without sacrificing their own belief system.

The company has nearly doubled its staff, to about 22 employees, amid a crush of job applicants.

“It seems like we’ve had half of LaGrange and all of Elkhart County applying,” said Tom Hart, who ran a business driving vans for the Amish before agreeing to become the bakery’s general manager.

The owners of Ben’s Bakery, another area Amish business, also has seen business improve dramatically over the past year as demand for their cookies, pretzels and other goods has exploded. That’s allowed them to add about 10 workers.

Co-owner Elizabeth Miller, who runs the bakery with her husband, said she feels blessed to have had such success in these hard times. But she is hesitant to take much credit.

“It is up to the Lord,” she said.

President Barack Obama's visit to Elkhart County Wednesday prompted mixed feelings from the area's large Amish community, which has been hard-hit by the recession in part because many of them have lost their jobs in the recreational vehicle industry.

Like most Amish communities throughout the country, the Amish in Elkhart and neighboring LaGrange counties say they generally do not vote or involve themselves too deeply in political matters.

Harvey Bontrager, an Amish man who lives in nearby LaGrange County and runs a flower, ice cream and bakery business, said he prefers instead to express himself through prayer.

"God's always in control and he decided that that's our president," Bontrager said. "If I set myself against the agenda that God has provided, I'm setting myself against God's plans. The best we can do is pray for our nation."

Still, other members of the conservative, religious community say they do have concerns about elements of the president's ambitious agenda for dealing with the recession, as well as some of his other policies.

The Amish have generally excluded themselves from government programs such as Social Security, preferring instead to rely on their own community for help. That has left some concerned about the potential impact a universal health care system might have on them.
Others in a community that prides itself on self-sufficiency say they are alarmed by the cost of the stimulus program and its potential effect on society.

"I hope he didn't come here to give free handouts. He's handing out too much money," said one 53-year-old Amish man, who asked that his name not be used because he felt it would be going against his faith to speak publicly of such things.

Another Amish man, who is 55 and didn't want his name used for the same reason, said he has concerns that the government is becoming too involved in people's lives through the programs President Obama is promoting.

"The more government is involved in people's (lives), the more everybody is doing what the government is telling them," he said.
But others in the Amish community said they welcomed the president to the area, even if they don't necessarily agree with his policies.
"It's still an honor to me because he's the president. We honor and respect him and we pray for him all the time," said Ray Troyer, a deacon in the Amish church who lives in LaGrange County.

Some also said the president's visit could help the country better understand how much the area is struggling. Thanks in large part to the RV industry's troubles, Elkhart County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.
"I think it's a good idea," Bontrager said, referring to the visit to the small town of Wakarusa. "It definitely draws attention to the fact that the county's been hit."

ELKHART, Ind. - Msnbc.com asked residents of the Elkhart, Ind., area to send us their questions for President Barack Obama, who is visiting Wakarusa on Wednesday, the third time he will have visited the region as president. We received 1,000 responses from across the nation, most about the economy and health care. Msnbc.com will ask the president some of the questions during a short interview Wednesday; his answers will be posted here and broadcast on NBC News.

Here is a sampling of the questions in general. Scroll down to read about residents’ fears of losing health insurance and not finding work and even one query about the Obama girls.

Economy
1. With the stimulus coming to Elkhart, who decides how the funds are distributed and why are they going to roads and runways instead of long-term jobs that will put money back into the economy?

— Bart McGlinsey, Elkhart, Ind.

2. While I do appreciate the work done to improve the economy, what lasting and real benefits are you anticipating for those of us going into college? This year, I’m headed off to my freshman year at IU and once again, they have raised tuition and room and board, so the cost is becoming a very real issue. In the coming year, how do you foresee making higher education (both at an undergrad and graduate level) feasible for all students? Also, where do you feel higher level education factors into the success of the economic recovery?

— Kae Grossman, Elkhart, Ind.

3. If the big companies and the banks are being given a fresh start and public money, why doesn’t the government bail out the ordinary individual as well by giving out at least $5,000.00 or 10 percent of income to each taxpayer so as to force demand as people will have money to spend on either saving their houses or new ventures or buying new things, therefore fueling the market. Or alternatively force the credit reporting agencies to wipe the slate clean so people can borrow this money that you are giving out and make the economy go around instead of only giving the money back to the same places that squander it. Initially, albeit slowly, more than a trillion was siphoned out of the system; then Bush put back a trillion; then you came in with almost another two trillion; isn’t that feeding and enriching the same people without catering for the people on main street? Wouldn’t it be better to give the people their money in their hands and let them dictate supply of desired goods and services as clearly the make-up of the economy has changed with this digital and Internet age.

— Muki Ndabambi, Indianapolis

• See timeline of key Obama-Elkhart events in past year
• Submit your question

4. Why is the FDIC shutting down banks without letting the stock holders get at least some of their money back? Like Cooperative Bankshares did (stock symbol COOP).

— Edward Penn,  Indianapolis

5. This is a question that has been asked before, but with the recent C.A.R.S. program’s outcome, I think it is relevant again. The $1 billion program was drained almost before it started. I would say that this shows that the American people want and need to spend money, if it were only available to them. With the size of the program, the translation would be something around 250,000 automobiles sold, pumping a LOT of much needed money into the economy. For the $1 billion spent, easily $3 billion was added to the economy. I would think that demonstrates that one of the best ways to stimulate the economy is to put more money in the hands of the people that need it.

A few states are increasing taxes. People are still losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands. Do you think maybe the recovery could be helped along by giving people a chance to keep or get back more of their money so they have more to spend?

Thank you.

— Duane Smith, Milan, Ind.

6. My question to Obama: When are you going to do something about unfair trade that is the real reason our economy is in such bad shape? Ever since Bill Clinton signed the NAFTA trade bill, the economy has been getting worse. Unfair (so-called free) trade is not free. It is very costly in terms of lost American jobs. Why can’t we emulate the Chinese, Japanese and other countries and regulate trade to our benefit? Why does Congress feel it is wrong to help America? An American citizen.

— Jim Mosier, Indianapolis

7. I want to know where the help is for us working-class Americans? If we didn’t live on a farm and grow the majority of our own food, we would be starving. But we still can’t meet our monthly expenses anymore, even with us both working outside the home full time.

— Name withheld, Moores Hill, Ind.

8. With the economy in INDIANA the way it is, WE THE PEOPLE wonder a GOOD reason for the so called CZARS, all of the departments already have someone in charge!!! If they are not capable why are they there?? Where is money coming from to pay them??????? How about passing that money around Elkhart and Kokomo???

— Name withheld, Delphi, Ind.

9. Mr. President, my question is this: How is all your proposed spending going to actually help the economy? My great-great-grandchildren won’t even see this country out of debt yet. I was looking forward to becoming older and retiring, but now that is fast becoming just a fantasy. I don’t understand how any of this is going to boost our economic situation or make things any better. With half of us Americans unemployed, no one is going to spend their stimulus money. We can’t afford to do that when we don’t know if we will still have a roof over our heads tomorrow or if our cars are going to be repossessed. I mean, call me crazy, but maybe I just can’t fathom how a national debt of $11.4 trillion (don’t have a clue how many zeroes that is) is considered progress.

— Name withheld, Indianapolis

10. Why we are wasting all of our time and effort by constantly trying to “bail the water out of the boat” instead of simply “fixing the holes”?

It continually escapes me as to why we don’t just fix those ever-expanding holes that are increasingly gaining on our “bail-out” efforts.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out here that — if we were to apply permanent patches to seal those holes — our boat would no longer be in danger of sinking and then our efforts could be readministered to strengthening that boat so as to head off any future threats to our boat’s safety. Hint: President Lincoln inadvertently gave his life after initiating THE most successful effort in our American history to “patch those holes.”

— Dan Williamson, Columbia City, Ind.

11. Have you ever had to reconcile your bankbook?

— Virginia Henkaline, Indiana

12. Hello, I have been very puzzled by this for some time now. I have even submitted a question on the recovery Web site (of course with no reply lol). Why when we bought our first house in October 2008 that we now owe $7,500.00 to the IRS, but three months later you get $8,000.00 and no repayment. Believe me, the economy was no better in that three-month period. And I just believe it is wrong.

— Craig Edgar, Indianapolis

13. Going into your presidency, you stated that the United States had the worst economy since the Great Depression. Recently, both yourself and Vice President Biden have stated that you didn’t realize just how bad the economy was. How is this possible? Were we in a depression? Also please explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help the economy turn around, and please cite examples of when this has worked in the past.

— Scott Ferguson, Indiana

14. Why are taxpayers providing benefits for politicians that they cannot afford to provide themselves and their families?

Why does the cost of everything continue to rise except our pay, but somehow the Government NEVER runs out of money or ideas to spend money? In fact some of us Americans have taken cuts in pay to keep our jobs.

Why are the states being threatened with Federal funding for lack of cooperation in certain matters when that very funding comes from THE PEOPLE of the State in the form of taxes?

When will the Government start cutting back spending like THE PEOPLE have had to do in their homes and lives? Where and what are the cut backs in Government?

— Linda White, Markleville, Ind.

15. Why isn’t the administration or Congress focusing on helping the states more in their economic recovery plan? Many states are unable to pay unemployment and Medicaid benefits. Bailing out businesses isn’t having an immediate or direct effect on U.S. citizens. However, bailing out states would.

— Anita Selig, Carmel, Ind.

16. I would like to know what improvements you see happening to and in Elkhart.

Why was $4.2 million allotted to a private airport? What business is that going to bring in?

What can you do to help the multifamily housing industry from going bust here?

Why wouldn’t you have split up the stimulus money so that the people could pay off their debts to the big businesses from going belly up?

I could use some stimulus money. I don’t qualify though because I am still a struggling employed person who hasn’t lost everything yet. How do I keep from losing everything on a one-income basis UNTIL my husband does get to go back to work?

Why are big businesses coming in ahead of the people of this country? I thought that was what it was all about with Mr. Obama!

— Jennifer Holderread, Elkhart, Ind.

17. I would ask him what he has been hearing from other governments around the world about the global financial climate. Are we the worst hit? If not who is?

— Chris King, Osceola, Ind.

Health care
18. Your health care proposals are going to be the death of small business in this country. We own a small business, and if we are forced to provide insurance for everyone, we will be forced to close our business of 32 years!! That is a fact, not fiction. If we asked our employees if they would rather have a job or have us pay their insurance — what do you think the answer would be? You simply cannot put this burden on the backs of small businesses along with the increases in taxes and increase in unemployment taxes we are having to pay.

— Sharon White, Carmel, Ind.

19. Hello Mr. President. Why don’t you just push the health bill through and stop letting those hardheaded Republicans try and stop what most of us voters wanted? If President Bush was still in office do you think he would give a hoot about Elkhart or any other county for that matter? We the voters have faith in you and your administration.

— Kenneth Cowan, Seymour, Ind.

20. What about Visteon? We lost our prescription insurance, and had to go to AARP. What a disappointment. Of course they say it is government run. Now Visteon goes to court on the 15th of this month and decides if we lose our health insurance and our death benefits. This was part of our benefits when we were working. This is not right. They will give the companies millions of dollars to keep them. What is right about it? If they need that much to be kept, get rid of them. We need our insurance and Mr. President, you want to help folks. Now is the time to prove it. It seems nothing you have done has added up right. We need your help now. This is part of the health plan. Keep it for us. It is part of our agreement with the company. This makes us feel sure the health plan is wrong, because a lot of others have and will lose the insurance they already have. You know realistically, if you can keep your insurance, we should be able to keep ours too. How would you feel if your insurance was in question? It is scary. We worked many years for this and now they can throw it out of the promised plan. What about those of us that have sickness? Will they be able to get insurance when this is dropped???? Tell me!!! Mr. President, can you possibly see this picture, and intervene for us???? Seniors have always been a backbone in our country, and now they seem like nothing. Also, this is a nation that still stands for the Ten Commandments and “In God we trust,” and we worship God. I’m sorry about how you believe, but we love God, and we hope you will get the book the “5,000 Year Leap” and it will help you see why we are so proud of our flag, and the Bible, and our FREEDOM. Please understand, we realize you are different, but as long as we stand for God and our American flag, our economy will come back good. But so many are fighting what is right and God may be angry. Please see this picture. Companies getting our money, and we end up without insurance and death benefits. So much more we could say, but just look at this and help us, we know you can. It is in your hands. Remember you are the president. Thank you for listening. We pray for our country, and our president and those in office at the White House that God will open their eyes, and help them to see to do right. We are real proud of Mike Pence. He is an Indiana man. Thanks MS.

— Marilyn Saylor, Richmond, Ind.

21. I am disabled and my wife cannot work to afford insurance. Does the health plan cover her for taking care of me?

— Randy Sparks, Terre Haute, Ind.

War in Iraq
22. Since the war in Iraq has drained the United States, when can we just say enough is enough and let Iraq take care of itself?

— Name withheld, Bloomington, Ind.

Education
23. Why do you put your faith in charter schools and why are public schools not allowed to run like charter schools?

— Name withheld, Hobart, Ind.

Unemployment
24. Since unemployment has increased since last winter, why do you think the stimulus package is working?

— Name withheld, Elkhart, Ind.

25. If you agree that 70 percent of jobs in this country are created by small business, what role does government play as an employment entity? This questioned is asked in light of apparent increase in government job hiring while private business is generally downsizing. What does that say to state and municipal government units that outsource functions to private industry in efforts at cost savings and efficiency?

— Name withheld, Goshen, Ind.

26. Where are the jobs that your incentive package is creating? All I have seen is more jobs lost and now a talk of tax increases because of all the monies being spent.

— Name withheld, Evansville, Ind.

27. All of us here have been hit hard — we took a 3 percent pay cut to avoid layoffs at the local hospital (I’ve worked here over 18 years) and see our income purchasing less. My adult children are either unemployed or only have part-time jobs, two are back living at home. My fiance is disabled and on a fixed income. How are we going to make ends meet this winter when gas, natural gas and other necessities are out of control?

— Beverly Paul, Elkhart, Ind.

28. What is your plan for unemployed people who have exhausted their benefits? You have told us that the economy is going to take a longer time to recover than expected, so what is the plan to get the population to that recovery date? Will the federal government spend more money to replenish the benefits plan for the unemployed workers? What is the plan for states to get benefits for the unemployed?

— Name withheld, Argos, Ind.

Life in White House
29. How are the girls doing with the dog?

— Sue Wood, Rolling Prairie, Ind.