Even before the job fair opens, the line snakes into the parking lot of the state fairground, a muted parade of lives derailed by layoffs.
“It kills me, it eats me up inside,” said Raymond Vaughn, who has been out of work for seven months, since he lost his job as a window installer. His fiancée now pays the bills. “I go into this fantasy world where I’m like, I’m in the wrong life and I’m actually a millionaire. It really bothers me I can’t do the things I’d like for her. Sometimes you get where you feel less than a man.”
As the American economy sinks deeper into one of the more punishing recessions since the Depression, frustration and fear color the national conversation.
This city in the center of South Carolina is an ideal listening post. According to a range of indicators assembled by Moody’s Economy.com ”” from job growth to change in household worth ”” this metropolitan area came closer than any other to being a microcosm of the nation over the last decade.