“But I have families that depend on me…”

Post by Rebecca Kane Dow

“Sure, I’d like to retire – I’m 67 – I’d love to stop working 70 hours a week. I could close the doors tomorrow. But I have families that depend on me,” aptly spoken by the owner of a small manufacturing company from Suffield, Connecticut this past Thursday to an audience of his peers and legislators, including the Lt. Governor.

When a company closes or resorts to layoffs in order to survive, we focus on the number of jobs lost (or moved to another state), the buildings vacated or the tax revenue loss. These are all numbers and as large as they have become, we seem to be comfortable with numbers. But how often do you, when watching a news story on TV or reading the article in the paper, think about the extended story – about the people behind the numbers?

I do. And I think about the affect it will have on their families and community – the community I am a part of.

Let’s just take one of the thousands of jobs lost in Connecticut manufacturing over the last year – this one job, statistics tells us, helps to support between three and five jobs in its community – the teachers, news agents, barbers, fire fighters, insurance agents, cable TV installers and deli owners – we’re all connected.  So when this one job is multiplied by fifty or a hundred or a thousand, the ripple effect creates a devastating tsunami of loss to the local and regional communities.

“But I have families that depend on me…”

This business owner knows what’s at stake - not only for his employees’ families, but for his community’s families as well. What a weight to bear.